A decline in wheat stocks at the global level has been observed since 2021. Until then, between 2017 and 2020, they were at their highest historical level (around 40%, reflecting very large season-to-season commercial grain stocks). Even after the 2008 crisis, wheat reserves remained above 25% each year, although they fluctuated widely from year to year. The current situation with world wheat reserves is a throwback to the market situation in the world in the late 1990s and early ‘noughties’.
Commenting on this situation, Yuri Rizha, an expert in agro-marketing, draws attention to the fact that low wheat reserves are an indicator of “the transition of the global market of this basic exchange commodity and agro-food raw materials into a vulnerable phase”. For traders it is a signal of high volatility and prevalence of “bullish” market trend. For consumers-processors – the risk of higher costs. For farmers – potentially higher purchase prices for their products.
