Russia Dominates Wheat Market as Soggy Fields Push Out France
- ‘Black Sea just has so much to sell,’ INTL FCStone says
- Russia to take 16% of global wheat market: UkrAgroConsult
A worker operates the controls of a combine harvester, manufactured by Claas KGaA, during the summer wheat harvest on a farm operated by Kuban Agroholding, a unit of Basic Element Co., in Ust-Labinsk, Russia, on Monday, June 27, 2016. Russian wheat-export prices dropped to a six-year low last week as prices in major competitors such as the U.S. and France fell and harvesting of a bumper crop was about to start.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergIn the race to supply wheat to the world’s biggest buyer, Russia is running away with the prize.
Russia has supplanted the U.S. as the top exporter of the grain and won the lion’s share of the wheat purchased in the first two tenders this season by Egypt, which buys huge amounts of wheat to provide citizens with cheap bread. Traders haven’t even bothered offering grain from France, which is struggling with concerns over poor quality after heavy flooding this year.