Minnesota farmers are getting ready for spring planting, but some are planting a different crop this year.
Wheat prices soar on concerns of war, drought
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — With cash grain prices at record highs and Russia’s war on Ukraine likely…
Minnesota farmers are getting ready for spring planting, but some are planting a different crop this year.
Wheat prices soar on concerns of war, drought
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — With cash grain prices at record highs and Russia’s war on Ukraine likely to push them higher still, one might assume that farm trucks would be lining up a mile deep at grain elevators hoping to cash in as they’ve done before.
Not so, says Mitch Konen. The Fairfield wheat farmer said many farmers, himself included, were hit so hard by the 2021 drought that it took everything they could harvest just to fill contracts that were supposed to be just 30% of what they would cut in a normal year.
“You see $10 cash prices, now. That’s only good if you’ve got it in the bin,” said Konen, past president of Montana Grain Growers Association. “There are probably not a lot of people who have grain in the bin to sell because they already sold it.”
Montana’s 2021 wheat harvest of 100.85 million bushels, was just 49% of the 10-year average, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The last time wheat prices were in this territory was 2008, the start of the Great Recession, a time when positive Montana grain sales buoyed a state economy that was being rocked by a collapse in the housing industry. It marked the first time state wheat sales were valued at $1 billion or more.
https://archive.ph/7931Q
Russia-Ukraine war fuels ‘biggest supply shock to global grain markets’ in living memory
https://archive.ph/AByXH
“I am convinced it is going to be the biggest supply shock to global grain markets in my lifetime,” tweeted Scott Irwin, agricultural economist at the University of Illinois, on Wednesday.
“As just one data point. It has been reported that there are 600 million bushels of corn contracted for export that is currently trapped in Ukraine,” he said. “And what about 2022” production?
Russia and Ukraine combined account for 25% of global wheat exports and Ukraine alone for 13% of corn exports, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets.
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Are About to Increase the Cost of Food
Russia is a major supplier of every crop nutrient, and higher supermarket bills will be a ripple effect of its invasion of Ukraine.
https://archive.ph/1Yfr6
