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FAO Sees Fifth Consecutive Year of Decline in Grain Stocks


From Volume 3, Issue Number 28 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published July 13, 2004

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 reserves—which the WTO expressly forbids as "trade-distorting," but some nations, such as Japan, practice—is seen in the FAO statistics below. The trend shown reflects all the various aspects of an economy in breakdown—lack 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)

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