How this tribe survives in Colorado’s worst drought region with as little as 10% of its hard-won water supply
“Prices are going to remain higher, and consumers are going to feel that in the price of products they purchase on supermarket shelves,” Allen said.Droughts last year meant that even before Russia invaded Ukraine, global food markets were under pressure. The decline in global supply resulting from bad weather had already helped push up prices coming into this year. In January 2020, wheat was about 30% cheaper than it is now. Canadian wheat production is expected to pick up over the next year. The spring crop in the United States, led by North Dakota, is also expected to be robust. But Europe has been suffering from a heat wave, raising concern about a weak yield, while India banned exports of wheat in May because of drought.
Russia, the largest producer of fertilizer in the world, has steadily restricted the flow of natural gas to Europe, not only driving fuel prices higher but nudging up the cost of nitrogen-based fertilizers. As fertilizer prices have risen, so have wheat prices, ticking up in the past week. The USDA forecasts that the 18.8 million metric tons of wheat that Ukraine exported over the past 12 months will fall to around 10 million in the coming 12 months.