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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.
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Wheat production in Central Asia for the 2017/18 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 2016/17 production but will remain above the five-year average.
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Consecutive years of favorable production have led to carry-over stocks that, while less than MY 2016/17, are 24 percent higher than the five-year average. The region is expected to have a surplus of wheat 21 percent lower than the previous year but 11 percent higher than the five-year average.
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Price levels vary across the region. Export prices remain low in Kazakhstan, 27 percent below the five-year average. Low prices in Kazakhstan reflect global market trends in general.
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Prices are projected to follow trends similar to MY 2016/17, remaining at or above-average in most countries in the region. Record low prices will persist in Kazakhstan while prices in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, two structurally-deficit countries, will likely trend slightly higher than average.
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Despite average production and above-average carry-over stocks, the security situation in Afghanistan continues to affect food security throughout most regions of the country in 2017, as detailed in the Afghanistan Food Security Outlook Update. Conflict has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes since the beginning of 2017. Most of the displaced population will likely face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity, with normal food and income sources disrupted. The adverse impact of conflict is also felt by non-displaced populations in affected rural areas due to various factors including limited access to labor opportunities, limited safe areas for grazing livestock, and disrupted trade and transportation routes.