Ian Steppler Wrote while quoting "an independant honey buyer":

> Talking of the new crop honey coming of Argentina,
> there is a projected 120,000 metric tonnes high end to 60,000 metric
> tonnes low end.  Figuring that the actual production will be around the
> 80,000-100,000 metric tonnes mark.

Argentina now has approx 4,000,000 hives.  From 1982 to 2000 their:
Average production was 32.75 kgs/hive = 131,000 tonnes today.
High production was of 41.2 kgs/hive = 165,000 tonnes today.
Low production (1984) was 25.0 kgs/hive = 100,000 tonnes today.
To have a crop lower than 100,000 tonnes today, Argentina would have 
to have had the worst crop since 1984.  Poor crop? maybe (see below) 
Worst crop for 23 years?  That's not what the grapevine is saying.

Production/crop predictions:
In 2005 Argentinean production was estimated at 80,000 tonnes but 
107,138 tonnes were exported.  Some carryover you might say?  Well in 
2006, a poor crop (only 70,000 tonnes) was predicted.  This was 
increased later to 80,000 tonnes, but 99,208 tonnes were exported.

And now we have another prediction of (midpoint) 80,000 tonnes???

It is quite clear that the Argentinean crop predictions/estimates are 
recently not accurate and I for one do not believe the numbers that 
are being bandied about such as in the quoted text above.

In 1990 Argentina had 1.4 million hives.  In 2000 they had 2.8 
million hives.  It is quite possible that there is not the accuracy 
with crop predictions now that there are nearly 3 times the number of 
hives there were 17 years ago.

It's also possible that the "massaging" of crop figures is alive and 
well in Argentina as in most (all??) other countries in the World.

e.g. the 2006 US crop was widely reported on this list as being 
poor/disasterous etc and for a short time, prices held up against the 
World trend.
(See this graph..... http://www.pbase.com/peterbray/image/75374345)

Now it appears there are stocks sitting unsold in Canada with the new 
crop around the corner.

Perhaps I am seen as a bit bearish in sentiments, but if there is an 
oversupply in the World (see above mentioned graph) then attempting 
to predict short supply and rising prices will only increase the long 
term pain.

Regards,
Peter Bray_________________________________________________________
Airborne Honey Ltd., Pennington St, PO Box 28, Leeston, 
New Zealand Fax 64-3-324-3236,  Phone 64-3-324-3569  
http://www.airborne.co.nz  [log in to unmask]

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************