El Nino dims Australia wheat harvest outlook

Melbourne

AUSTRALIA reduced its wheat production outlook as the El Nino weather event threatens to curb yields in the country's east.

The harvest may total 23.6 million tonnes in 2015-2016 from 24.4 million tonnes forecast in March, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics & Sciences said in a report. Output was 23.7 million tonnes a year earlier and 25.3 million in 2013-2014, it said. Farmers in the world's fifth-biggest exporter begin harvesting about October.

Wheat in Chicago traded near a two-month high on Tuesday after excessive rain in parts of the US, dry conditions in Canada and hot weather in Europe raised concerns global supplies will decline. Australia last month declared an El Nino, which can parch the country's eastern states, and cause droughts in parts of Asia and wetter and cooler summers in North America. El Nino may cut global wheat output by 1.4 per cent, the United Nations' Food & Agriculture Orga…