Russian wheat export prices were stable last week after 13 weeks of consecutive growth, the IKAR agriculture consultancy said in a note on Monday. Russian wheat with 12.5% protein loading from Black Sea ports for supply in early November was $310 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of last week, unchanged from the previous week, said Dmitry Rylko, head of IKAR.

Sovecon, another consultancy, pegged wheat as having risen $1 to $313 a tonne while barley was up $2 at $271 a tonne. Export prices for Russian wheat are still being supported by farmers’ reluctance to sell at the moment and also by a stronger rouble, which makes Russian export-focused products less competitive on global markets, Sovecon said. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter. Russian wheat exports are down by 26% since the start of the 2021/22 marketing season on July 1, partly because of the state export tax, which will continue to rise this week.

Farmers had sown winter grains on 15.3 million hectares for next year’s crop, down from 16.6 million hectares at the same date a year ago, according to the agriculture ministry. There is no publicly available data just for winter wheat. Russia’s total winter wheat sowing area could fall this autumn by 0.8-1.2 million hectares from a year ago, Sovecon said. It previously expected the fall to be 0.7-1.2 million hectares.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Olga Popova and Polina Devitt Editing by David Goodman)