Wheat Prices Plummet as Canadian Stocks Climb

The wheat market is experiencing a decline on Wednesday, with prices falling across various exchanges. Chicago Soft Red Winter (SRW) contracts are down by $0.14 to $0.17 per bushel at midday, while Kansas City Hard Red Winter (HRW) futures are dropping by $0.09 to $0.11 per bushel. Minneapolis spring wheat is also lower by $0.03 to $0.04 per bushel.

The US Department of Agriculture's weekly Crop Progress report showed that 86% of the country's spring wheat crop has been harvested, which is 3 percentage points ahead of the normal pace as of Sunday. However, the winter wheat crop is lagging behind the 5-year average for planting pace, with only 2% completed.

The USDA will maintain its US production estimates in this month's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, awaiting the Small Grains Summary on September 30. Traders expect few changes to the balance sheet, with a Bloomberg survey predicting an average guess of 718 million bushels, only 1 million bushels above August.

South Korean importers have purchased 100,000 metric tons of wheat from both the US and Canada. Canadian wheat stocks as of July 31 were tallied at 6.649 million metric tons, a 56.8% increase from last year's levels. Excluding durum wheat, the total was 5.547 million metric tons, up 48.8% from last year.