The crop forecasts of the International Grains Council (IGC) in London indicate good grain supplies worldwide. For the current 2009|10 grain marketing year (July 2009 to June 2010), world grain production is expected to reach the second highest level in history. For global corn (maize) production in 2009|10, growth of 6.0 million tonnes to 797 million tonnes is projected. For wheat, the IGC is predicting that the 2009|10 crop will represent a modest reduction to 675 million tonnes (prior year: 686 million tonnes).

The 2009 European harvest in the EU-27, as estimated by Stratégie Grains, brought a crop of about 57 million tonnes of corn (prior year: 63 million tonnes) and about 130 million tonnes of wheat (prior year: 120 million tonnes). For corn, 2009|10 was the final marketing year in which corn was eligible for intervention, up to a limit of 700,000 tonnes. Most of the intervention volume of about 550,000 tonnes came from Hungary and Slovakia.

The good supply made itself felt in the commodity prices quoted on the Euronext Liffe commodity derivatives exchange in Paris (formerly known as MATIF). After strong swings, grain prices showed a significant downward trend amid the crop expectations. At present, grain prices appear to have reached bottom. Forecasts for the 2010 crops (the 2010|11 grain marketing year) predict a decrease of about 1.5% in grain production both worldwide and for Europe.

Corn starch
Total corn processing volume (excluding corn for bioethanol) in the AGRANA starch plants (including the 50% share in HUNGRANA) increased in the 2009|10 financial year to about 630,900 tonnes (prior year: 593,300 tonnes). Within this figure, processing of freshly harvested wet corn totalled 182,400 (prior-year 163,700) tonnes. The production of core starch products (i.e., excluding bioethanol and by-products) reached 540,600 tonnes (prior year: 512,200 tonnes).

Despite a difficult business environment especially for refined non-food starches, the capacity utilisation of the manufacturing plants was high. The economic conditions led to intra-year fluctuation in demand for products for the paper and corrugated board industry and stagnation in products for the building sector. AGRANA was able to make up for this in the food sector by raising production volumes of saccharification products such as isoglucose and liquid dextrose, as well as of native starches.

Potato starch
In the 2009 campaign, the Austrian starch plant in Gmünd, in a campaign of 111 days (prior year: 116 days) processed about 187,400 tonnes of starch potatoes (prior year: 198,500 tonnes) into 40,200 tonnes of potato starch (prior year: 42,400 tonnes). The organic portion of this was approximately 2.7% (prior year: 3.2%) measured by input volume. For the 2010 campaign year the full quota of 47,691 tonnes of potato starch is available, and contracts with farmers were concluded to be able to produce this amount. From about 25,000 tonnes of food potatoes, approximately 4,000 tonnes of long-life potato products were manufactured, with 22% of this being organic products.