In 2007, a number of adverse weather events affected yields across the globe, including:
- Northern Europe had a dry spring and harvest-time floods.
- Southeast Europe experienced a drought.
- Ukraine and Russia experienced a second year of drought.
- A large area of the U.S. hard red winter wheat area had a late, hard,
multi-day freeze that killed some of the crop and reduced yields over
large areas.
- Canada’s summer growing season was hot and dry, resulting in lower yields for wheat, barley, and rapeseed.
- Northwest Africa experienced a drought in some of its major wheat- and barley-growing areas.
- Turkey had a drought that reduced yields in its nonirrigated production areas.
- Australia was in the third year of the worst multiyear drought in a
century. Grain yields were very low and exports plummeted.
- Argentina had a late freeze followed by drought that reduced corn and barley yields.
The result of adverse weather in 2007 was a second consecutive drop in
global average yields for grains and oilseeds.
In historical
perspective, two sequential years of lower global yields occurred only
three other times in the last 37 years.