Bumper wheat harvest offers little relief as global glut keeps prices historically low
Record wheat production across major exporters has pushed global stocks past one billion tonnes, leaving Australian farmers wrestling with historically flat prices.
Global wheat supplies are climbing to levels not seen in seven years and with Australia’s harvest underway, the surge is keeping prices historically flat.
At Geelong, wheat was trading at $347 a tonne, down nearly 21 per cent from the $440 a tonne seen at harvest in 2022, highlighting the squeeze Australian growers faced despite strong production.
The latest US World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report showed record wheat yields across major exporters including the US, Australia, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Argentina and the EU, pushing global wheat stocks up to 1.09 billion tonnes for the first time since 2019-20.
The report had already led to a dip in US wheat prices, with the season-average farm price cut to $5.00 per bushel, reflecting abundant global supply.
For Australian growers, this translated to more competition in export markets and highlighted the importance of strategic marketing, storage management and timing of sales to capture peak returns.
While the higher global stock levels suggested a softer pricing environment, demand remained firm in key markets such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, where Australian wheat is often favoured for its quality.
Analysts said Australian growers should monitor global supply and competitor harvests closely, consider forward-selling opportunities, and plan logistics carefully as harvest progressed, as even modest changes in global trade flows could influence farmgate returns that season.
For 2025-26, Australia started the season with wheat stocks of 4.25Mt and was expected to produce 34.5Mt, with exports forecast at 25Mt.
By comparison, Russia dominated the global wheat market, with production projected at 85Mt and exports tipped at 45Mt, highlighting the scale of competition Australian growers faced in international markets.
Australian farmers had already reported historically flat wheat prices, and with harvest underway, many were considering storing grain on-farm to wait out the softer market.
Rupanyup cropping farmer Andrew Weidemann said marketing was an interesting conundrum at the moment.
“If farmers have canola, they will sell that, and they might wait on wheat,” he said.
He said the quality of the wheat in Western Australia was also likely to play a role in pricing and, despite lower prices, farmers were opting to sell just because of yields and volumes.
He said there was a lot of lower-protein wheat in WA, and that meant it was more likely to compete directly on the world market against Ukraine and Russian wheat.
In contrast, eastern states farmers were likely to produce higher-protein crops that fit into different markets.
He said at current figures farmers would sell, but if values were to drop to $290 to $300 a tonne farmgate, a lot of wheat could possibly be held.
Western Australian farmer Barry Large of Miling said farmers were seeing prices from $300 to $365 a tonne and while nobody was pleased about the current pricing growers were “tolerating it.”
“A bit of a yield boost will make up for it,” he said.
Mr Large estimated that farmers in the west were stripping wheat crops that were up to 20 to 30 per cent above average in yield.
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