International Wheat Market: Overview and Trends

摘要

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. and global wheat consumption experienced steady, but robust growth. However, in recent years, that upward trend has stalled. Annual domestic consumption has leveled off, due in part to the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets. Mirroring U.S. and global consumption trends, growth in world trade can be described as lackluster. Despite flat world trade, opportunities to capture new international business exist. Consumption in a core group of countries - mostly in Africa, South America and Asia (minus China) - has been steadily growing for 30 years. Although production within this core group has increased, these countries are increasingly turning to foreign suppliers to meet their growing appetite for wheat. In fact,this core group consistently imports nearly half of all wheat they consume each year. An opportunity exists for the United States in making inroads with this core group. However, a challenge will be to meet their changing demands. The United States is not alone in pursuing the growing demand from the core group of countries, and faces stiff challenges from both expected and unexpected sources. For more than 20 years, U.S. market share has been eroded by increasingly strong export competition. Another unexpected challenge for the United States is the steady decline in domestic production and the steady increase in production costs. Since the 1980s acreage has fallen faster than yields have advanced. This has not been the case for the United States' competition as acreage has been relatively flat while yield improvements have been increasing at a fast pace. Moreover, production costs in many of these countries, especially the non-traditional suppliers, are one-third lower than in the United States.