Outlook for Australia is bearish as wheat harvest nears and without sales to China

The price outlook for Australia’s major grain export is undeniably bearish as growers and traders head towards harvest without forward sales, which came last year from China, on the books. That was the message from the Australian Market Review – Outlook, Challenges and Opportunities session at the Australian Grains Industry Conference this week. It canvassed the views of LDC head of Asian wheat and barley research Tim Crowe, AC Grain principal broker Adam Clarke, and Ingham’s general manager commodities Matthew Clarke, and glanced around a global market awash with competition for all grades of wheat. Weighing on the Chinese complex is the fact that cheap and abundant corn has displaced wheat in many a ration. Mr Crowe outlined the enormity of the change in China, which imported around 4Mt of corn per annum until 2021, and then jumped to 25Mt, while wheat has gone the other way, with imports falling from around 15Mt per annum to 5-9Mt. “The quickest answer is that there is no ...