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Combine harvester in action near the Ukrainian city of Odessa
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Russia's attack on Ukraine has triggered shock waves on the commodity markets: energy sources have become drastically more expensive.
Even more dramatic, however, was the development on the wheat market: the price of the grain suddenly more than doubled.
The grain shortage triggered by the attack on Ukraine – the country is one of the largest wheat exporters – is also fueling fears of famine around the world, for example in parts of Africa.
Now, at least in terms of price development, there are signs of a slight relaxation.
The price of wheat fell to its lowest level in four months on Monday night.
At one point, a bushel (about 27 kilograms) traded for $9.26 on the Singapore Stock Exchange.
The last time the wheat price was this low was at the end of February, when Russia launched its war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine.
Market observers referred to reports from Egypt as the reason for the current price decline.
Accordingly, the country plans to reduce its wheat imports – and thus the demand for wheat.
Global grain production down only slightly
According to an Egyptian government official, the country wants to reduce imports of wheat by 500,000 tons per year.
The North African country is a major importer of wheat from the war zone.
As a result of the war, deliveries failed and world market prices rose sharply.
A bushel of wheat traded as high as $12.85 at one point in May.
Russia and Ukraine are among the most important wheat-growing countries in the world.
Both countries together covered about a quarter of the world wheat trade before the war.
There is also good news on the production side: Despite the conflict and sharply rising fertilizer prices, the United Nations estimates that the world grain harvest this year will be only slightly lower than in 2021. So far, 2.785 billion tons are expected, which would be around 23 million tons less than in previous financial year, said Josef Schmidhuber, economist at the UN agricultural organization FAO in Rome.
"That's a very small difference, and really only a rough estimate at the moment."
beb/dpa
