World Economic News
FAO Sees Fifth Consecutive Year of Decline in Grain Stocks
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in the June issue of its Food Outlook, released four times a year, states, "The new 2004/2005 marketing season may lead to a fifth consecutive annual drawdown of global cereal stocks." This refers to the total of all grains (rice, wheat and other small grains, and coarse grains such as corn and sorghums). This decline in grain carry-over stocks, commercial pipeline, on-farm, national reserveswhich the WTO expressly forbids as "trade-distorting," but some nations, such as Japan, practiceis seen in the FAO statistics below. The trend shown reflects all the various aspects of an economy in breakdownlack of infrastructure to compensate for adverse weather, high energy costs for agriculture inputs, loss of family farm systems in many big grain regions (e.g., North America, Australia), domination of grain trade by cartels, etc.
Year |
|
World Grain Stocks (million metric tons) |
2000/2001 |
|
598.5 |
2001/2002 |
|
570.8 |
2002/2003 |
|
474.9 |
2003/2004 |
|
397.8 (est.) |
2004/2005 |
|
362.7 (forecast) |
|