Miller Magazine Issue: 141 September 2021

34 MILLER / september 2021 NEWS Millers and bakers are draining wheat reserves and paying more for spring wheat used in baking, as drought shrivels crops across the Canadian Prairies and northern U.S. Plains that produce more than half of the world's supply. U.S. and Canadian farmers are bracing for a sharply smaller spring wheat harvest due to the driest conditions in decades, as severe weather damages crops across the hemisphere, from heat scorching cherries in the U.S. Pacific Northwest to frost chilling sugarcane in Brazil. While overall global wheat stocks are large, the drought affects mainly the high-protein spring wheat crop that mill- ers such as Archer Daniels Midland and bakers including Grupo Bimbo rely on to produce the texture and moist- ness in baked goods that consumers expect. Importers from Britain to China must pay up for limit- ed North American harvests or turn to other suppliers like Australia and Russia. Canada's spring wheat crop is expected at between 16 and 20 million tonnes, well off last year's 25.8 million, said Bruce Burnett, director of markets and weather information at MarketsFarm. Just 16% of spring wheat in Saskatchewan and 21.6% in Alberta is in good or excellent condition, according to provincial governments. The U.S. spring wheat harvest is expected to drop 41% from a year ago to the lowest production in 33 years, according to the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA estimated that just 10% of the country's spring wheat crop was in good or excellent condition, down from 73% a year ago and the lowest rating for this point of the season since the 1988 drought. In Montana, where the USDA has deemed 42% of spring wheat in very poor condition and another 43% in poor shape, growers are buying out of sales contracts inked earlier in the season with elevators because they will not have wheat to deliver. China, which normally buys modest amounts of North American spring wheat to make high-quality bread and baked goods, will likely buy more from other suppliers such as Australia, said a China-based trader with an in- ternational trading house. Russia may make up some of North America's shortfall in the global market. Southern Russia, the country's main wheat-producing region, is producing wheat with higher protein than a year ago, Dmitry Rylko, head of the Moscow-based IKAR consul- tancy, said. Spring wheat from Russia and Kazakhstan, however, does not have the same characteristics import- ant for baking, such as gluten strength, as U.S. hard red spring wheat and Canadian Western Red Spring, said Mike Spier of U.S. Wheat Associates, a trade group that promotes U.S. wheat overseas. REUTERS Millers, bakers fret as drought withers North America's spring wheat