ADMISI London Wheat Report for 19 November

Today saw Chicago wheat futures rise for a third session in a row, prompted by concerns of an escalating war in the Black Sea breadbasket region. This follows the White House’s move to lift curbs on Ukraine using U.S. missiles to strike Russian territory, potentially also opening the door for other nations to allow their weapons to be used in a similar manner.

According to the weekly crop condition report from the USDA yesterday, U.S. winter wheat crop conditions improved more than expected over the past week following much-required rain across the Plains farm belt. The USDA stated that 49% of the winter wheat crop was in good-to-excellent condition as of this past Sunday. This is up from 44% the previous week and the strongest rating for this time of year in five years, government data showed.

In Europe, soft wheat exports from the bloc since the start of the 2024/25 season in July had reached 8.79 mmt by the end of last week. This is down 31% from 12.66 mmt a year earlier, data released by the EU Commission showed today. The report went into detail to show that EU barley exports totalled 1.83 mmt, down 37% from 2.91 mmt in the corresponding period in 2023/24. As has been previously reported, EU cereal exports have been curbed by numerous harvest setbacks, with heavy rain in western Europe contributing to a 12-year low for EU soft wheat production and keeping barley output near a 12-year low from 2023.

Finally, thousands of farmers protested at Britain’s parliament today to demand the scrapping of an inheritance tax that they say will destroy family farms and threaten food production. Farmers have said that they are already suffering from unfair competition owing to cheap, low-quality imports. Additionally, it has been reported that their margins have also been squeezed by supermarkets, and they have been unfairly hit by climate change targets. Time will tell if today’s peaceful protests will be heard in parliament.