Wheat Bear Market Worsens as U.S. Farms Lose Share: Commodities
This article is for subscribers only.
U.S. wheat farmers are enduring torrential spring rain after last year’s drought, reducing their share of worldwide exports to a near-record low at a time when rising global supply is driving prices into a bear market.
Shipments will fall to 17.6 percent of global exports in the 12 months through May 2014, compared with 20.3 percent in 2013 and the all-time low of 17.5 percent in 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. The domestic crop is contracting for the fourth time in five years, and expanding harvests from Canada to Russia are curbing the dominance of U.S. growers, who accounted for half of sales in 1974.