Australia's Bureau of Meteorology believed that there was only a five to 10 percent chance that the drought-inducing El Nino weather condition would re-form and continue through 2003, spokesman Grant Beard told Reuters yesterday.

The weakening El Nino indicated it may be only a few months before conditions returned to a near-neutral state, he said.

This was in line with a view presented to a Senate estimates committee this week by the Bureau of Rural Sciences drought task force, that there was a one-in-10 chance that El Nino could continue, but was likely to break down in the southern hemisphere autumn.

This indicated that Australia was likely to reinstate itself as one of the world's leading exporters of wheat, barley and canola from the crop year finishing March 31, 2004, analysts said.

This season, more than 11 months of severe drought has thrown Australia, the world's second-largest exporter of wheat in 2001/02, into the ignominious position of having to import supplies from Britain to feed its large numbers of cattle, sheep, chickens and other farm animals.

Sheales told Reuters yesterday it was too early to say whether the winter crops might be large enough to challenge the record wheat output of 24.8 million tonnes in 1999/00.

But growers traditionally planted a large crop after a major drought in an attempt to get cash flow, ABARE Executive Director Brian Fisher told the Senate committee.

MORE FORECAST CUTS?

Sheales told Reuters the government body was still working on revisions for next Tuesday's crop forecasts.

In its latest report in December, ABARE cut its forecast of Australia's 2002/03 wheat crop to 9.98 million tonnes from the previous year's 23.96 million tonnes on ABARE's figures and 24.5 million tonnes on the figures of wheat exporter AWB Ltd (AWB.AX).

The barley crop was forecast to drop to 3.26 million tonnes from 7.46 million tonnes in 2001/02, while canola production was forecast to drop to 621,000 tonnes from 1.61 million tonnes.

The focus in next Tuesday's forecasts would be on the summer crops of cotton, sorghum and rice, with ABARE's first forecast for 2003/04 winter crops to be issued at its annual Outlook conference next month, Sheales said.

ABARE forecast in December that Australia's 2002/03 cotton lint production would fall to 238,000 tonnes from 684,000 tonnes the year before.

Sorghum production was forecast to fall to 855,000 tonnes from 1.78 million tonnes, while rice production was forecast to plummet to 380,000 tonnes from 1.29 million tonnes.

All three main summer crops would have been further hit by the continuing drought since the November forecast.

Cotton, medium-grain rice and sorghum are all significant Australian exports, mainly to Asia.