The wheat price suddenly dropped 10% from EUR164/ton to EUR147/ton within one week so the wheat harvest will not generate more money for Romania’s economy, even though it is at least 2.7% higher than last year.
The drop in the price of wheat delivered from Romania is following the same trend as the quote of the wheat on the Paris Bourse, which is at its lowest in four years, too.
“We expected this situation even before the harvest, took a chance and signed contracts for EUR160/ton before harvesting. We sold 20,000 tons of wheat and kept 10,000 tons,” says Stefan Poienaru, owner of Agrofarm Holding, one of the largest farms in the south of Romania.
He says the price decline is also due to the lack of deposit certificates, which would have helped farmers without storage space and cash reserves through the harvesting period.
“A factor in the decline were the statements of the traders about the high yield and export availability, which I think are ungrounded, and the discontinuation of the deposit certificates without replacing them with anything,” Poienaru says.
The wheat price drop comes at a time when farmers are harvesting a record amount of wheat and the major producers on the international markets are having abundant harvests, too. Moreover, importers are not pressured by the lack of stocks so they are in no hurry to speed up orders.
Romania will harvest 7.6 million tons of wheat this season, 2.7% more than in 2013, which is a decade high, according to the forecast of the European Commission released a couple of days ago. The estimate is in line with USDA’s, but 8.5% lower than the May forecast of grain trader Toepfer.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)