TOKYO, July 23. /TASS/. Russia is playing the stabilizing role in the global wheat market and Western sanctions cannot challenge its leadership in this sector of the global economy, President of the Natural Resource Research Institute Akio Shibata told TASS.
"From the start of this century, Russia has drastically expanded supplies of its wheat overseas. It has currently become its top global exporter. The greater portion of the country’s territory is in the cold climate zone and is not suitable to produce grain crops; however, to all appearances, global warming had the beneficial effect for the Russian agriculture," the expert said.
"In the opinion of Moscow, Western sanctions interfere with overseas supplies of its agricultural produce but compared to the level of 2021-2022, the country’s share in global wheat trading gained eight percentage points and now stands at 25% of total global exports," Shibata noted. "All the European countries hold the second place with a significant gap. Russia is playing the stabilizing role in the global wheat market prone to overheating; its supplies prevent the dramatic price hike. It is much more difficult in a sense to out Russia from wheat trading than even from oil and natural gas markets," he said.
Supplies from other traditional exporters declined significantly, the expert pointed out. "Production and export of wheat in Australia in the financial year of 2023-2024 fell by 36% due to adverse weather conditions and the threat of drought," Shibata said. "The US controlled about 20% of the market earlier and was viewed as a ‘global bread basket.’ However, its share fell currently to the level below 10%," he added.
Wheat exports from Canada are also going down, the expert continued. "The market believes in such conditions that the rise in supplies from Russia more than outweighs the drop in exports from these countries," he added.