World wheat plantings for the 2010-11 harvests will fall by 1.5m hectares (3.7m acres), led by a decline in US sowings, the International Grains Council has said.

Poor profitability, and the knock-on impact of late corn and soybean harvests in tying up Midwest land, will leave American farmers harvesting 19.7m hectares (48.4m acres) of wheat next year, a 2.5% decline.

"Expected low returns could encourage some farmers, to grow less, especially in soft red winter wheat areas, affected by planting delays," the influential intergovernmental body said.

Above average 

However, other countries would reluctant to follow America's lead, with Chinese and European growers maintaining wheat acreages.

Russia and Ukraine were likely to harvest a smaller area than this year, but that reflected an assumption of more typical growing conditions.

Frost damage to the countries' 2009 crops had been "below normal", the IGC said.

Indian farmers may expand plantings, thanks to a rise in support prices from the government, which is targeting a rise of 2m tonnes to 82m tonnes in 2009-10 wheat output.

Global plantings would come in at 222m hectares (546m acres), while below last year's figure, but 2% above the five-year average, the council said.

Any alternative?

The data was in line with expectations, a London analyst told Agrimoney.com, adding that the relative resilience of wheat plantings, despite poor prices for much of the year, reflected the poor prospects for other grains.

"Sure, many farmers have been complaining about wheat prices, but they have to look at the alternatives," the analyst said.

"For some, the decision is whether to plant barley instead, and that market has really struggled."

Official data on Thursday showed that, in Europe, farmers offered 333,800 tonnes of grains, mainly barley, for intervention buying in the third week of this season's programme, in a sign of the low prices on the open market.

The offered brought the programme's total to 1.77m tonnes, comprising 1.61m tonnes of barley and 162,500 tonnes of wheat.

Strategie Grains, the French analysis group, two weeks ago forecast European farmers cutting barley sowngs by 830,000 hectares, with wheat plantings rising by 260,000 hectares.

Corn forecast cut 

The IGC made the estimates as it trimmed its forecast for corn production in 2009-10 by 2m tonnes to 787m tonnes, reflecting weaker hopes for Brazilian, European and American harvests.

Stocks would end the year at 134m tonnes, 3m tonnes less than previously forecast, and the lowest figure for three years.