China is set to import record volumes of wheat this year, trading sources say, with rain damage to its crop and worries over dry weather in exporting nations fueling Beijing's appetite to buy while prices are low. Traders said China's frantic buying is likely to support global prices, which have dropped more than a quarter this year - based on the Chicago futures benchmark price - amid abundant supplies from top exporter Russia.

Russian wheat export prices were flat last week amid muted demand from importers, yet dwindling supply from farmers, after a prolonged price slump, analysts said. The price of 12.5%-protein Russian wheat scheduled for free-on-board (FOB) delivery late November-early December was $224 per metric ton last week, the same as the week before, the IKAR agriculture consultancy reported.

US durum production this season is estimated to be down more than 7% year over year, the only major variety of wheat to decrease. Projected ending stocks for the year are seen plummeting nearly 30% from a year earlier, dropping to their lowest level since at least 2010. Lower imports are also hitting US durum supplies — in the June-August period durum imports were down 32% versus last year, mainly because of a smaller crop in Canada.

Due to widespread dry conditions, Argentina’s wheat production forecast for the 2023-24 marketing year has been revised lower in the most recent Global Agricultural Information Network report from the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). The FAS dropped its projections for Argentine wheat output by 2 million tonnes from the previous forecast to 14.5 million tonnes. If realized, the total would still be 2 million tonnes higher than the country’s 2022-23 drought-stricken crop. Argentina, typically the largest wheat producer and exporter in South America, is in the midst of a three-year stretch of dry conditions.

It has been a few years since the United States has had a truly good winter wheat harvest, though the 2024 crop could be on its way despite lingering drought in top states. In its first assessment of the growing season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rated 47% of the domestic wheat crop as good or excellent (GE) as of Sunday, the date’s best since 2019 and above the recent five-year average of 44%. That is substantially better than last year’s initial rating of 28% GE, which was by far the worst start for winter wheat since conditions began in 1986. Come April, the 2023 crop still carried some of the worst-ever ratings, seemingly guaranteeing a terrible harvest was looming.

Dozens of U.S. agriculture industry representatives gathered in Beijing on Thursday to meet Chinese counterparts amid growing U.S. efforts to bolster farm trade even as political ties between their two countries remain strained. A delegation from 11 groups including the U.S. Soybean Export Council, U.S. Grains Council and U.S. Wheat Associates is visiting a week after Chinese grain buyers signed non-binding agreements in Iowa to buy billions of dollars worth of produce, mostly soybeans, the first such signing since 2017.

Competition may be heating up big time in one of Canada’s top markets for grain, oilseeds and pulses. Russian grain exporting company Food Export Trade LLC (FET) signed what is reported to be a US$26 billion contract to supply China with 70 million tonnes of grain, pulses and oilseeds over the next 12 years...Grain in the FET megadeal would be routed through Grain Terminal Zabaikalsk, a grain railway terminal at Russia’s border with China’s Inner Mongolia, according to the website.