Droughts, Ukraine war push global grain stocks toward worrying decade low

By the end of the 2022/23 crop year, the world’s buffer stocks of corn will be enough for just 80 days’ worth of consumption, down 28% from five years ago and the lowest level since 2010/11, according to figures compiled for Reuters by the International Grains Council, an intergovernmental organization.

That would be fewer days of corn stocks than the world had in 2012, when the last global food crisis spurred riots.

Policymakers are worried.

The World Bank has earmarked $30 billion to help offset food shortages worsened by war, and U.S. President Joe Biden last week announced nearly $3 billion in additional funding to combat global food insecurity.

Half a million Somali children face hunger in the worst famine anywhere this century, according to the United Nations, as a severe drought grips the Horn of Africa.

Gross said the weather remained too dry in the spring and then two derecho windstorms brought destructive 100-mile-per-hour (160 kph) gusts across fields in Hutchinson County and southeastern parts of the state.

“It’s lining up to be like 2012,” Gross said. “No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.”

Tight grain supplies reflect the impact of climate change on crop production as well as growing global demand for livestock that feed on corn, eating away at stockpiles. Inventories of all harvested grain on hand globally will reach an eight-year low at the end of this crop year, the International Grains Council said on Thursday.

More poor weather could further reduce global inventories, particularly if the current dry weather in South America continues into the main planting season, as the crop cycle shifts to the southern hemisphere.

Crop forecasts in Argentina, the world’s No. 3 corn exporter, are already being scaled back due to dry weather.

In the Mayenne region in northwestern France, the European Union’s top grain-producing country, farmer Dominique Defay, said some corn plants have few ears and he is bracing for a crop 35% below his average.

He had been hoping for at least 135 bushels per acre, near the low-end of his five-year average. He may get only about 90 bushels after France suffered its worst recorded drought since 1958.

“These are crops that have had very little water,” Defay said.

EU production is expected to hit a 15-year low, a decline that will push the bloc to increase 2022/23 imports from Ukraine by about 30% from the previous year to 10.4 million tonnes, consultancy Strategie Grains said.

Bigger European import demand means less for places like the drought-stricken Horn of Africa.

Ukraine’s exports of corn and wheat have risen since a U.N.-brokered deal with Russia allowed shipments to restart from ports that had been blockaded since the war started. But it remains to be seen how much Ukraine can export, especially if the war drags on.

Ukraine is expected to harvest 25 to 27 million tonnes of corn in 2022, down from 42.1 million tonnes in 2021, following Russia’s invasion, according to official estimates.

Sanctions related to the war mean Russia has also struggled to export what is expected to be a record-large wheat crop.

Shipments of wheat and other agricultural products from Ukraine have been a fraction of pre-war levels, said Kevin Hack, a global vice president for ingredients supplier Univar Solutions UNVR.N.

“The supply that’s coming from that area can be cut off at a moment’s notice,” he said.

SOUTH AMERICAN HOPES

Farmers in China meanwhile, have grappled with dryness, threatening crops, while India has limited rice exports due to poor weather.

A ratio that factors in U.S. wheat inventories compared to usage and that reflects stockpile levels is expected to drop to a nine-year low in 2022/23, according to Reuters calculations of government data. The same ratio is also predicted to hit a nine-year low for U.S. soybeans.

“We end up, on the balance sheets, finding that it will be another year where global consumption exceeds global production,” said Dan Basse, president of consultancy AgResource.

Importers are setting their sights on South America, where Brazilian farmers are expected to produce record corn and soybean crops in 2023, according to analysts and the government. Farmers hope for better weather for soy plantings that are under way, after dryness spoiled part of last season’s harvest.

In Argentina, though, the Rosario Grains Exchange predicts plantings that just began for the 2022/2023 corn crop will fall 7% from last season to 8 million hectares (20 million acres) due to a familiar problem – drought.

The Argentine government has also capped export of the crop, which will be planted in coming weeks, at an initial 10 million tonnes, compared to 36 million tonnes in the 2021/22 corn season.

World corn supply slumps to 12-year-low

Tags: Ukraine, grain, prices, food security, war