Italy: Cereals and soybeans, plummeting prices, the reasons for the collapse in prices

Published 2024년 3월 24일

Tridge summary

The article addresses the significant challenges confronting farmers due to plummeting prices of key crops like wheat, corn, and soybeans, largely due to an oversupply from Ukraine and the USSR, and a speculative bubble worsened by the Ukraine war. It highlights the adverse effects on European markets, including Italy, where farmers struggle with market volatility and lack of knowledge. The piece also critiques the inefficacy of cultivation contracts in Italy and discusses the European Commission's efforts to adjust the CAP to better manage market crises. Furthermore, it explores the historical use of market protection tools in Italy, such as the voluntary masses system, and the potential for a European storage system to stabilize prices, despite skepticism about EU member states' political will to implement it. Additionally, it notes a recent shift in EU trade policies, including increased duties on imports from Russia.

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Original content

Spring sowing is in full swing, but we can already hear farmers saying: "With these prices, we'll leave the tractors sitting in the shed in October." Discontent dictated by a collapse in the prices of wheat, corn and soybeans, which in fact some analysts did not foresee. Ukraine and the USSR invade the market According to Mario Boggini of Officina Commerciale Commodities of San Angelo Lodigiano (Lodi), «the speculative bubble has actually been in place since August 2020, then it worsened with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Today we are witnessing the effects of a strong introduction onto the European market of goods from Ukraine which cannot find an outlet in countries such as Hungary and Poland, and of goods from the USSR which continues to serve its commercial interests. We then add that the French find a burdened North African market and therefore pour more product into Europe, and that countries such as Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria continue to produce ...

Source: Ilnuovoagricoltore