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The sowing campaign has started in all regions of Ukraine, including Luhansk and Donetsk regions. President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in his video address to the nation on Friday evening, Ukrinform reports. “The Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food reported that the sowing campaign has begun and continues in all regions of our country, including Luhansk and Donetsk,” he said.

Colorado farmer Brian Brooks will be the first to tell you farming in the southeast corner of the Centennial State isn’t for the faint of heart. “You can see the wheat is trying and barely hanging on the roots,” says Brooks, a farmer in Baca County, Colo. “You can just tell how abusive this winter has been.” Brooks farmer says Baca County is the epicenter of the Dust Bowl, and in an area used to arid climate, he says this winter has been nothing short of brutal. “The last big rain event we had it was in August,” says Brooks....

The U.S. winter wheat crop has emerged from dormancy in miserable condition following a historically dry winter in key production states, almost guaranteeing that the harvest will not rank among the country’s better ones. The timing is not great since tensions in the wheat market are running high. Global wheat prices hit record levels last month after war broke out among top exporters Russia and Ukraine, and that came on the heels of an already-tight supply situation. The United States is also among the world’s leading suppliers of wheat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture late on Monday said 30% of...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - After Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent global wheat futures soaring, U.S. farmer Vance Ehmke was eager to sell his grain. Local prices shot up roughly 30% to nearly $12 a bushel, about the highest Ehmke could recall in 45 years of farming near the western Kansas town of Healy. Instead of reaping a windfall, Ehmke found a commodities market turned upside down. He and his wife Louise told Reuters they couldn't sell a nickel of their upcoming summer wheat harvest for future delivery. Futures prices for corn and wheat had rocketed so abruptly that many along the...

Just in case the coming global famine, which One River CIO Eric Peters likened to the original Holodomor (which incidentally took place in Ukraine under Stalin and killed 3-5 million), isn’t bad enough, moments ago Russia warned that it could be even worse. According to Interfax, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry said that the country could ban wheat, rye, barley and corn exports from March 15 to June 30. “The Agriculture Ministry, together with the Industry and Trade Ministry, has drafted a government resolution that provides for a temporary ban on the export of basic grain crops from Russia from March 15...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the world’s dependence on Russian President Vladimir Putin and its neighbor now under siege, including the fact that the two countries supply much of the grain needs around the globe and prices for grain are now the highest they have been in six decades. Russia and Ukraine provide 29 percent of global wheat exports, 19 percent of global corn supplies, and 80 percent of the global sunflower oil exports

As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, western governments scrambled to develop responses.That might be hard to believe since the military buildup had been underway for months. But European governments and the U.S. seemed unprepared to assist Ukraine when the war started.On the other hand, it seems like China has been preparing for this action for years.But it’s more likely that China has strategic plans for any contingency.Earlier this week, I wrote about how China was better prepared than Russia to withstand economic sanctions. The chart below shows that preparation extends to foodstuffs as well.China Is Well-StockedIn the first half of...

Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of Europe” given it’s long been among the world’s top ten wheat exporters and supplied over $6 billion in agricultural products to the European Union in 2020, has issued an emergency order Wednesday banning the export of grains and other products.The ban includes the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, meat, and other products considered vital to the global economy. But amid wartime, and with Ukraine’s government saying many of its citizens are now starving under Russian siege, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian and food policy Roman Leshchenko said the drastic action was...

Soft Red Winter (SRW) futures hit an all-time high Friday before retreating back, as consecutive limit up trading days meant wheat prices topped a previous high set in 2008. Earlier this week, prices had shot to a 14-year high. "On the continuous futures, the Chicago March winter wheat futures contract set a then all-time high of $13.34 1/2 cents on Feb 27, 2008. Today, the March 2022 has traded to $13.40. So on some continuous charts, a new record today," says Bill Nelson of ProFarmer. "The wonky part of this is that today's record is for wheat futures in delivery....

The condition of China's winter wheat crop could be the "worst in history", the agriculture minister said on Saturday, raising concerns about grain supplies in the world's biggest wheat consumer. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the country's annual parliament meeting, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian said that rare heavy rainfall last year delayed the planting of about one-third of the normal wheat acreage. read more A survey of the winter wheat crop taken before the start of winter found that the amount of first- and second-grade crop was down by more than 20 percentage points,...

Ukraine is considered the “breadbasket of Europe,” and the Russian invasion is choking off grain exports, sending global food prices to record highs. Grain prices surged to record highs last week as world food prices are now higher than they were during the 2011 Arab Spring, leaving us with an abundance of caution that political uprisings due to food price shocks could be right around the corner. On Friday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Price Index (FFPI), a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, reported record-high prices for February....

This morning we listed some of the countries that are dangerously (and almost exclusively) reliant on Russia and Ukraine for their wheat imports, highlighting Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and others…… which are facing an “Arab Spring” style food crisis (and potential uprising) in the coming weeks unless the Ukraine conflict is resolved. And unfortunately, we can now confidently predict that the coming food crisis will strike every country that is using food fertilizer – which is all – because moments ago, Russian Interfax reported that as part of Moscow’s countersanctions, Russia has recommended fertilizer makers to halt exports, a move which...

(the money quote): "U.S. grain and soy plantings Prevented plantings (thousands of acres) Crop Dec. 1, Nov. 9, Dec. 1, 2021 2021 2020 Corn 639 639 6,186 Soybeans 341 341 1,476 Wheat 293 293 1,272 Total for all U.S. crops 2,104 2,104 10,219"

Ukraine has earned the nickname "breadbasket of Europe" for its rich dark soil, vast wheat fields, and other farm goods. The Russian invasion has cut off the world from cheap and abundant wheat supplies. Ukraine and Russia are vital to the global food supply, accounting for more than a quarter of global wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally, according to Bloomberg. Reuters reports Ukrainian ports will remain closed until the Russian invasion ends and maritime security is restored for commercial ships. This means all shipments of farm goods from Ukraine have ceased,...

China has thrown Russia's Vladimir Putin another sanction-busting lifeline by lifting wheat import restrictions in an economic boost to Moscow. President Xi Jinping has backed keeping China fully open to wheat imports from Russia in spite of sweeping sanctions imposed by the West in a bid to stop Putin's war in Ukraine. Imports had been restricted in recent months over concern over Russia's measures to prevent plant diseases, particularly in agricultural crops. The move to keep the market open was reportedly part of a deal between Moscow and Beijing concluded earlier this month and is the latest sign of growing...

It is amazing what has happened to our wheat products in a few short decades. In efforts to increase yield, improve shelf life, and enhance our appetites, modern food producers have taken a staple of our diet (breads and grains) that humans have consumed for millennia with little or no health issues, and turned it into a "Frankenfood". Bread, which was a cheap, nutritious way to fill our stomachs for thousands of years, is now potentially the cause of obesity and a variety of inflammatory diseases. A look at the processes we use to grow, harvest, mill, refine, enrich, and...

One of two ways that Pacific Northwest farmers get their wheat to export in Portland has been shut down after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped barge traffic on the Columbia River around the Bonneville Dam after a crack was found on a critical part of one of its massive locks. With the navigation lock inoperable, barges can’t push upstream from Bonneville Dam, which is about 40 miles upstream from Portland. The broken lock is also preventing barges hauling wheat, logs and other freight from Idaho, Oregon and Washington from reaching port. The crack was discovered late last week,...

(Reuters) - China has approved wheat imports from the Russian region of Kurgan, the Chinese customs office said on Friday, bringing Russia a step closer to its goal of dramatically increasing grain exports. It also approved soybean imports from all parts of Russia, the General Administration of Customs said in a separate statement on its website, having all but halted U.S. soy imports as the trade dispute between Beijing and Washington deepened. China was the top buyer of U.S. soybeans until Beijing slapped a 25% tariff on shipments last year in response to U.S. tariffs on a range of Chinese...

Key Points China will raise tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods in retaliation for the Trump administration’s latest decision to increase duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. U.S. stock indexes fall about 2% as the trade war between the world’s two largest economies escalates. ================================================================ China will raise tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods in retaliation for the U.S. decision to hike duties on Chinese goods, the Chinese Finance Ministry said Monday. Beijing will increase tariffs on more than 5,000 products to as high as 25%. Duties on some other goods will increase to 20%. Those...

In a land flowing with milk and honey, what kinds of food made up the ancient Jewish diet? What did people eat and drink in Roman Palestine? Susan Weingarten guides readers through a menu of the first millennium C.E. in her article "Biblical Archaeology 101: The Ancient Diet of Roman Palestine," published in the March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although it is difficult to reconstruct the diet of the average person in Palestine during the Roman and Late Antique periods, Weingarten, as both a food historian and an archaeologist, is well equipped for the task. Using archaeological remains...