The U.S. ag attache in Mexico has lowered the estimates of the country’s corn and sorghum crops from USDA’s current official estimates based on new information from the Government of Mexico and industry sources due to “its worst drought in at least seven decades, which has devastated the rural sector and is expected to continue throughout the year.”
The attache now estimates the country’s 2011-12 corn crop at 18.4 million metric tons (MMT), down from USDA’s current peg of 20.5 MMT. The attache also increased Mexico’s corn import forecast by 700,000 MT to 10.5 MMT, with most expected to come from the U.S. “Corn output was reduced due to lower-than-expected planted area and adverse weather conditions. Official sources stated that the drought-like conditions during critical phases of the corn crop resulted in worse yield losses in the 2011 spring/summer crop cycle than previously estimated.”
The attache lowered the size of Mexico’s sorghum crop from 6.6 MMT to 6.126 MMT and also boosted its import forecast by 100,000 MT to 1.7 MMT.
