Wheat takes center stage in the May issue of FAO's Monthly News Report on Grains , released this week.
According to an article from Bloomberg, Russia is expected to see a record grain crop this year after the warmest winter on record and plentiful spring rains; the wheat crop is expected to reach 63.3 million tons of wheat, the second largest harvest after 2008.
The US is also expected to see a bumper wheat harvest, according to Yahoo! Finance, but efforts in China to cuts its large domestic corn stocks could hurt US wheat exports, and thus wheat prices, later in the year. The USDA forecasts that the country's domestic wheat stockpile could reach 1.029 billion bushels by the end of the
2016-201717 crop year, the biggest since 1987-1988.
AgProfessional reports that Argentinian wheat exports more than doubled in the first quarter of 2016. President Mauricio Macri's new open-market agricultural policies ave expected to spur increased plantings in the coming months, and farmers are rushing to sell off their remaining stockpiles to make room for the new crops. Global wheat prices are at their lowest point in six years, and this surge in wheat on the global market has caused prices to to fall even further.
In South Africa, wheat futures prices have hit a record high, says the Independent Online, as cereal import duties are set to rise by 30 percent. This increase is due to a decline in global commodity prices and to a depreciation of the South African rand. Import tariffs on wheat have already climbed more than seven times since October 2014. The move to increase tariffs again will protect producers from international competition but will place an additional burden on consumers.
The FAO Monthly News Report on Grains provides a collection of news articles on issues or factors considered critical in shaping the regional/global grains economy, as well as links to reports, statistics, and upcoming events.