China's wheat crop has suffered more severely than previously thought from frost in the growing period and rain during the harvest, and import demand to compensate for the damage could see the country eclipse Egypt as the world's top buyer.

 

Interviews with farmers and new estimates from analysts have revealed weather damage in China's northern grain belt could have made as much as 20 million metric tons of the wheat crop, or 16 percent, unfit for human consumption. That would be double the volume previously reported as damaged.

 

Higher imports, which have already been revised upwards on initial damage reports, will further shrink global supplies and support prices, fuelling new worries over global food security.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday raised its forecast for China's imports in 2013/14 to 8.5 million metric tons from 3.2 million metric tons in the previous year, prompting U.S. wheat prices to rally to more than two-week highs.

 

But overseas traders and analysts estimate imports could rise above 10 million metric tons, surpassing the 9 million metric tons the world's biggest buyer Egypt is expected to buy.

 

Competition from China for more imports would force other buyers, such as Egypt, to pay more for grains, in a new blow for the Middle East country after two years of political turmoil has left it struggling for funds to pay for food imports.