Global Wheat Supplies Tightening

We've seen a tightening of global wheat supplies as a result of the dry conditions in Western Canada, the northern U.S. and parts of Russia.

The USDA recently dropped the global wheat production forecast to 777 million metric tonnes,

Marlene Boersch with Mercantile Consulting Venture talked about the situation in Sask Wheat's latest marketing report.

"As anticipated, the big declines were in Russian and in Canadian wheat production at 12.5 and 7.5 million tonne cut, respectively. That's a total of 20 million tonnes between the two countries, and the size of the cuts exceeded what was expected by the trade."

She says the latest wheat estimates are bad news for importing countries because lost production is not easily replaced.

Boersch talked about we can expect when it comes to Canadian wheat export projections.

"Canada will clearly export less wheat in the new crop year, with the exports pegged at 17 and a half million tonnes compared to 27.7 this past year. Prices will be good as global spring wheat production should be at least 13% smaller than last year's."

She notes durum supplies in North America are also expected to be very tight, while durum estimates are reportedly higher in both Mexico and the European Union.