December 18, 2003	Thursday	Shawwal 23, 1424

LONDON, Dec 17: Britain’s agriculture ministry on Wednesday cut almost 500,000 tons off its official output estimate for this year’s UK wheat crop after earlier this month admitting it had made serious mistakes in calculating key planting data.

In its latest grain supply/ demand figures for UK cereals, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said UK wheat production would come in at 14.328m tons in 2003/04, sharply lower than its October estimate of 14.825m tons.—Reuters