The commonly used estimates of global wheat stocks are imperfect — some countries don’t publish data at all — but they indicate supplies, disrupted by the war in Ukraine, are the tightest since the food price crisis of 2007/08, said a blog by the IFPRI think tank. “The relative tightness of global stocks suggests that price volatility will continue to remain high relative to the past 10 years,” wrote senior research fellow Joe Glauber.
“Going forward, rebuilding inventories of wheat and other key global crops would help to reduce both prices and price volatility,” said Glauber. “By the same token, tight stocks mean that an unforeseen production shortfall in a major wheat-producing region would likely send prices higher again, as happened in 2010/11 and 2012/13, and result in increased price volatility.” Wheat prices have fallen back to pre-war levels in recent months.
At current rates of consumption, wheat stocks held by major exporting countries at the end of the current marketing year would equal a 26.3-day global supply. It would be the lowest supply since 25.4 days in 2007/08.