Central Asia Regional Wheat Supply and Market Outlook

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Preface

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) monitors trends in staple food supply and prices in countries at risk of food insecurity. The Regional Supply and Market Outlook report provides a summary of regional staple food availability, surpluses and deficits during the current marketing year, projected price behavior, implications for local and regional commodity procurement, and essential market monitoring indicators. FEWS NET gratefully acknowledges partner organizations, national ministries of agriculture, national market information systems, regional organizations, and others for their assistance in providing the harvest estimates, commodity balance sheets, as well as trade and price data used in this report. To learn more about typical market conditions in Central Asia, readers are invited to explore the Central Asia regional wheat market fundamentals report. In this report, “Central Asia” refers to the countries of Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Key Messages

Wheat production in Central Asia for the 2018/19 market year (MY) was affected by prolonged periods of dryness and below-average cumulative precipitation. As a result, production is expected to be slightly less than MY 2017/18 production but almost equal to the five-year average. A regional overview of typical regional wheat production and market behavior can be found in the Central Asia Regional Wheat Market Fundamentals Summary.
Consecutive years of favorable production have led to carry-over stocks that, while less than MY 2017/18, are 16 percent higher than the five-year average. Regional wheat surpluses are expected to be six percent lower than the previous year but stable compared to the five-year average.
Globally, wheat prices have trended upward recently after reaching relatively low levels between September 2016 and September 2017. Price levels vary across Central Asia. Export prices are 11 percent below the five-year average in Kazakhstan.
Prices are projected to trend close to MY 2017/18 prices, remaining at or above-average in most countries in the region. Wheat flour prices in Kabul, Afghanistan are expected to increase slightly.
Afghanistan is experiencing its worst food insecurity emergency since the 2011 drought. As detailed in the Afghanistan Food Security Outlook Update, the majority of the country will likely face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity, with normal food and income sources disrupted through May 2019. There are expected to be pockets of Stressed and Emergency (IPC Phase 2 and 4, respectively) food insecure populations as well. Factors contributing to acute food insecurity include: drought, prolonged conflict, increased displacement, reduced labor opportunities, and many undocumented Afghan nationals returning from Iran and Pakistan. Conflict has displaced more than 300,000 people since the beginning of 2018, disrupting access to food and income among affected households.