The Rural Voice, 1992-02, Page 14It Pays
to Know
About
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10 THE RURAL VOICE
EL NINO BREWING
UP A STORM
Robert Mercer is editor of the
Broadwater Market Letter, a weekly
commodity and policy advisory letter
from Goodwood, Ontario LOC IAO.
The El Nino Pacific weather pat-
tern is brewing up quite a meteorolo-
gical forecaster's storm. As we men-
tioned in the column back in August
last year, this weather pattern will be
in the news, and it is.
Last August was too early to say if
the effect would be harmful to crop
development, now the answer is a
much more powerful yes. Depending
on timing, this weather pattern, which
has already cut the Australian wheat
crop by drought, could devastate the
central and northern U.S. plains
states. If you watch the markets it is
evident that traders are aware of El
Nino and feel it will come late in the
season rather than early. This means
that it would likely affect soybeans
more than corn because of the later
dates of pod set.
So far, El Nino has been given as
the cause for heavy rains in South
America and the loss of the full
monsoon in India. If the warming of
the Pacific waters continues and the
future weather pattern follows the
past, then there is good reason to
suggest that this summer could be hot
and dry on the Canadian prairies.
What has highlighted this weather
event has been a report from the very
conservative U.S. National Weather
Service on January 13. At a news
conference in Washington D.C., the
U.S. National Weather Service said
the El Nino weather pattern is likely
to bring warmer -than -average temp-
eratures to the northern plains and
much of the northern one-third of the
United States. Officials from the
NWS said there was a high probabil-
ity that El Nino would pump warm
air across the northern United States,
particularly in the northern plains.
The pattern will probably cause drier -
than -normal weather in the Pacific
northwest and the Ohio valley. Ver-
non Kousky, a meteorologist with
NWS, said the weather pauems over
the five weeks prior to the press con-
ference were typical for an El Nino -
affected winter. He said there was a
possibility that the jet stream in the
upper atmosphere, influenced by El
Nino, could change its route and
bring colder air into the central
United States.
In the northern hemisphere, El
Nino could result in wetter -than -nor-
mal conditions along the U.S. south-
east coast and the Gulf of Mexico,
and abnormally warm air into westem
Canada, Alaska and the extreme nor-
thern part of the continent. Because
of the changing ocean currents along
the western side of south America,
there is once again concern over the
size of the fish meal output from Peru
and Chile. Stocks in Peru are half
those of a year ago, and any further
loss in the fish harvest could send
protein feed supplement prices
higher.
The impact of this weather pattern
on Ontario farmers was demonstrated
at the farmers' week held in Ridge -
town recently. Here, Brian Doidge of
the Economics Department said that
if El Nino followed former patterns
then the price of soybeans could rise
dramatically but in a volatile manner
later this summer. Doidge saw a
strong possibility of the Ontario price
of soybeans rising to $8 from the
current level. Any rise in com price
would be associated with beans but
the rise would be less dramatic.
For Ontario, the early winter
weather pattern has been unusual with
warmer -than -normal temperatures
and ever the concern that the winter
wheat could come out of dormancy
too early. With more extreme
weather developing, as is associated
with El Nino, the mid-January storm
put a stop to any further discussion of
spring in January.0