The International Grains Council on Thursday cut its forecast for Australia's grain crop in the 2019/20 season because of unfavourable weather but raised its outlook for the European Union to a four-year high. In its monthly update, the inter-governmental body, put Australia's grain crop at 31.0 million tonnes, down from a previous forecast of 34.2 million but still above the prior season's 28.3 million.

"Because of unfavourable weather, the outlook for grains output in Australia is lowered by 3 million tonnes, mostly on downgrades for wheat and sorghum," the IGC said. Australia has been suffering from a prolonged drought. The EU's grain crop was, however, upwardly revised to 311.7 million tonnes, a four-year high, from 309.5 million in the last monthly update. The overall impact was to leave the IGC's forecast for total grains production in 2019/20 unchanged at 2.159 billion tonnes.

Copyright Reuters, 2019