The intense heat wave in India which has turned out to be the hottest spring in the last one hundred years is having its impact on people, fauna and agriculture. Thermometers recording 50 degrees centigrade, and the lack of water, has forced the government in New Delhi to halt all wheat exports, in anticipation of any shortages that could lead to extreme situations.
Because of forecasted dry weather the Rosario Grains Exchange anticipates a lesser wheat crop in Argentina for the 2022/23 season. The Exchange projects Argentine wheat production to decline to 19 million tons, down from a record the 22.1 million tons in 2021-22, as a La Niña weather pattern is expected to reduce rainfall in the coming months.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro Thursday said his country faced a food security threat as a consequence of the shortage of wheat, which could become scarce due to the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As a result of the Russian invasion, Ukraine's agricultural minister Roman Leshchenko said he expects his country's spring crop area may be halved this year to only 7 million hectares.
Brazil is working to reduce its dependence on foreign produce and hopes to take advantage of recent record exports to increase crops this year. In effect from December 2021 to March 2022, Brazil exported some 2.5 million tons of wheat, an unprecedented volume that benefited from a historically large harvest and, more recently, from additional demand generated by the war between wheat exporters Ukraine and Russia.
The prolongation of a workers' strike in the ports of Argentina may disrupt wheat millers' operations in Brazil, especially if the labor action is not called off before the end of the year, industry representatives were quoted in the Brazilian media.
Wheat prices fell after Australia forecast its second-highest crop ever and Russia proposed curtailing grain exports next year. Wheat futures fell as much as 3.3% in Chicago trading, the lowest for the contract in almost eight weeks. Corn and soybeans also fell following rainfall in South America during the weekend.
Argentina has become the first country to approve the growth and consumption of genetically modified wheat, the country's agriculture ministry announced. The ministry's scientific commission said in a statement released in Buenos Aires that it had approved a drought-resistant variety of wheat in the world's fourth-largest exporter of the crop.
The Paraguayan Chamber of Cereals and Oilseed exporters and traders, Capeco reported that the country's exports fell by 42.2% in July, with 267,949 tons, compared to 464,005 tons shipped in the previous month. This represents a drop of about 196,056 tons month-on-month.
Lebanon’s main grain silo at Beirut port was destroyed in a blast, leaving the nation with less than a month’s reserves of the grain but enough flour to avoid a crisis, the economy minister said on Wednesday.