The Canadian Wheat Board expects its sales to rebound this year to about 16 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley after drought slashed shipments last year, a marketing official said on November 7. "We're pretty comfortable with the sales program we have on the books right now," Ward Weisensel, the CWB's executive vice-president for marketing, said in an interview with Reuters.

The CWB, which has a monopoly on western Canadian wheat and barley sales to domestic millers, maltsters and export markets, plans 2003-04 sales of 2 million tonnes of feed and malting barley, Weisensel said. Its sales year runs from August to July.

In 2002-03, the CWB sold only 8.7 million tonnes of grain -- less than half of its 10-year average, Wiesensel said, after drought withered yields on the Prairie grain belt and a wet harvest damaged quality.

12 November, 2003