U.S. wheat continues to struggle in global markets. Exports are down to levels not seen in half a century. Gary Crawford has more.

PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford and USDA Outlook Board Chairman Mark Jekanowski.

Transcript

When it comes to the export situation for U.S. wheat...

We're struggling with very sluggish export demand.

USDA Outlook Chairman Mark Jekanowski says sales have been slow for months and we've seen some recent cancellations of purchases by China.

And so...

We've pulled our U.S. export forecast down by 15 million bushels.

So now it's at 710 million bushels.

That just reflects a sluggish pace of exports for hard red winter, which we reduced 5 million bushels, and an even more sluggish pace for soft red winter wheat, which we reduced 10 million bushels.

So add it all up and you get...

The lowest U.S. export volumes since the early 1970s.

Well, Mark says this season there are some unexpectedly large additions to world wheat supplies coming out of the Black Sea region, and so in this month's round of USDA forecasts...

We raised exports by Ukraine by a million tons this month, so now they're up to 16 million tons.

And that's important to know because there's a war going on over there, and despite the war, and despite the lack of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Ukraine is still able to export a lot of wheat.

We've been pretty successful at shipping those exports out, and that increases supplies to the global market and potentially weighs on global prices.

But it's not just Ukraine.

Also, we're seeing huge exports out of Russia, and we also raised the production forecast for Russia's crop.

Still, I mean, relatively tight-ending stocks globally, lowest since 2015-16, but that hasn't seemed to do much to support prices for wheat.

No, and in fact, Mark Jekanowski’s Outlook Board has just lowered once again its season-average wheat price forecast by another 5 cents, down to $7.15 a bushel.

That would be almost 20 percent below last year's average all-wheat price.

Nonetheless, analysts say U.S. wheat's still not price-competitive on world markets compared to wheat from competing countries.

Gary Crawford reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.