Miller Magazine Issue: 134 February 2021

18 NEWS MILLER / february 2021 prices, making Black Sea wheat “increasingly uncom- petitive in the East Asian market”, S&P Global Platts added. Russian crops also suffered from dry weather. “With food inflation posing a problem for Russian citizens, the Russian government decided they needed to intervene … what followed was an export tax on multiple agricultural products in the expectation that domestic customers can win a bigger share of business instead of export customers,” Australian agriculture supply chain firm AWB analyst Nicholas Robertson said in a note. Wheat export slots along Australia’s east co- ast were being booked up, as was train and road capa- city in wheat deliveries, Robertson said. The China and Australia relationship soured in the past year after Canberra pushed for an inter- national inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus without consulting Beijing. And in early Novem- ber, China unofficially banned Australian imports of coal, sugar, barley, lobsters, wine, copper and log timber. It was expected that imports of Aust- ralian wheat would be next in Beijing’s crosshairs. Instead, one of Australia’s biggest wheat harvests, after recovering from three consecutive drought years, came when Chinese demand was high and the supply was scarce. Australian wheat production and exports are both forecast to more than double in the financial year en- ding June 2021, according to the latest outlook by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). The soaring wheat output coincided with China going on a buying spree of wheat and grains in a massive effort to restock its agricultural supplies hurt by bad weather and to rebu- ild its pork industry after the African swine fever epi- demic decimated the nation’s hogs. The race to buy more agricultural and food products has also haste- ned following the latest coronavirus outbreaks in Chi- na in recent weeks. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST Pandemic restrictions halt Kazakh grain exports to China Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Kazakh flaxseed, sunf- lower and wheat have been stuck for months at the Chinese bor- der due to COVID-19 restrictions, and much of it could rot away before the bottleneck is cleared. China introduced new import regulations in November to try to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus that causes CO- VID-19, but many grain and seed cargoes ended up stranded at the Dostyk-Alashankou railroad border crossing. Kazakhstan’s main grains rail shipper Astyk Trans stopped accepting cargoes for China in January, saying it would take nine months to process shipments already held up at the border. Up to 2,500 railway cars are now stranded at the border, each carrying about 70 tonnes of produce, Astyk Trans said. Nur-Sultan and Beijing have had numerous discussions on the matter. But the Kazak Grain Union said there have been no real results so far and that it was pessimistic about progress. “Due to ... the doubling of the number of abandoned rail cars and the worsening of the situation, and taking into account the upcoming Chinese New Year public holidays ... the Grain Union of Kazakhs- tan does not expect the situation to be resolved until the summer season,” it said in a statement to Reuters. China is a minor market for Kazakh wheat, which mostly goes to Central Asian countries, but it has become the main export destination for some oilseeds such as sunflower. REUTERS