From Reuters, April 16:
Exclusive: Ukraine ready to ban wheat exports if necessary - official
Ukraine, one of world’s top grain exporters, is ready to ban wheat exports if sales exceed limits agreed with traders, the deputy economy minister in charge of agriculture told Reuters on Wednesday.Last night:
Any further restrictions of Ukraine’s grain exports could speed up trade from Black Sea producers Russia and Kazakhstan, depleting their grain export quotas earlier than anticipated.
Ukraine has exported 18 million tonnes of wheat so far in 2019/20, leaving an additional 2 million tonnes available for export over the rest of this season that runs until June 30, in line with a memorandum signed with traders.
“If the pace of exports becomes such that we are exporting 2 million tonnes in April, so, as we agreed (with traders) and warned - we will have to implement the paragraph of the memorandum to stop exports,” Taras Vysotskiy told Reuters.
“So far, the pace that we are tracking looks like we are not going to exceed these 2 million tonnes,” he said in a video interview.
Ukraine’s wheat harvest largely exceeds domestic consumption, but last month Ukrainian bakers and millers asked the government to limit grain exports to maintain bread prices.
The government said it would curb the export of some food products but so far has only halted foreign sales of the popular staple buckwheat. It has also asked parliament to approve lifting import duties on some cereals.
Disruptions to the supply chain caused by the coronavirus prompted neighbouring Romania to ban cereal exports to non-European Union destinations.
Last week Russia agreed to limit grain exports to 7 million tonnes from April to June to conserve supplies for the domestic market during the coronavirus outbreak.
Although the amount is roughly in line with what the country was expected to ship anyway in the period, Russia's online calculator here shows that, as of Wednesday, only 4.8 million tonnes of grain remains available for export from the quota until June 30 and 2.2 million tonnes are already declared for export....MUCH MORE
"Global Food Exports Paralyzed by Growing Port Problems"
This is a week old but noteworthy because it is a second reason food exports are not happening. The first reason, mentioned earlier today, is governments responding to uncertainty by halting exports of grains....
And yesterday:
The Convexity Maven Rages Against The Fed (and potentially Professor Shiller too)
...The Fed and other Central Banks have not yet done enough to cause a rise in consumer prices.
There are some oddities in the food supply that may lead to higher prices in coming months i.e. the fact that at least a half-dozen countries have stopped exporting food, preferring to hoard for domestic consumption, and the bottle neck of U.S. meatpacking plants closing causing the perverse effect of lower prices to farmers at the same time retail supply is shrinking and thus raising prices at the grocery store....
