- Drought and bad weather in Russia have left the country staring at record-low production. This is bad news for key importers including countries in East Africa.
- Russian wheat crop is expected to fall to an 11-year low this season.
- Prices of wheat are expected to rise even higher globally.
The worsening numbers of Russia wheat production are hitting the headlines in East Africa as the region braces for higher consumer prices in 2025. A dip in Russia wheat output poses huge risk to East Africa, a market that heavily relies on imports to plug its own production gaps.
For farmers in Russia, bad weather, is projected to cut their output of the key ingredient that makes a variety of foods for millions in East Africa. As a result, economists project that prices for wheat in East Africa—a key importer of Russian wheat—will soar in the coming months.
In a report titled “Russian wheat price hits three-months high amid drought and supply cuts” S&P Global warns of bad weather affecting Russia’s produce and hence the price of its grains.
Russia is one of the world’s top wheat exporters, and the country has been hit by severe drought which now threatens its winter crop. If Russia’s wheat production falls, then countries that rely on Russian exports will suffer and East Africa is on top of that list.
Consequently, economies in East Africa are staring at the painful reality that consumers will be forced to dig deeper into their pockets to access the key ingredient for many foods in the region. Russia and neighbouring Ukraine are big source markets for grains for East African countries.
Russia wheat production falling
East Africa’s reliance on imports from the Black Sea to meet its wheat demand coupled that with the region’s weak domestic currencies will deal a body blow to millions of consumers already grappling with high cost of living.
“The 2025 Russian wheat crop is expected to fall to an 11-year low, raising concerns for countries like Kenya, which imports up to 75 percent of its wheat needs from Russia and Ukraine,” reports S&P Global.
Already, the market for Russia wheat has surged to the highest price since late June as drought conditions worsen and production falls and is projected to fall even further.
“The price of wheat price rose as much as 4.3% in just the last two weeks alone, and is now the highest price since June 26, 2024,” reads the report.
More and more Russian regions are declaring an emergency on extreme drought conditions. Worse still, this comes on heel of multiple regions having already been hit by frosts since early May.
The poor weather conditions have cut down Russian’s expected 2024-2025 wheat production and as a result the export potential for the season which spells trouble for East Africa, yet again.
A similar crisis hit East Africa during the COVID 19 global pandemic, then again with the Russia-Ukraine war and now, it is bad weather. In all these instances, Russia wheat exports were affected and so was supply and price in East Africa.
The projections also foresee a spiraling scenario; “Traders said the drought is hindering wheat sales from Russian farmers, leading to dwindling liquidity, which is also likely to impact the next winter planting for the 2025-2026 wheat crop.”
“Russian exporters are under pressure to reduce shipments, prompting calls for export restrictions. The Russian Grain Union intends to appeal to the Russian agriculture ministry with a proposal to review the methodology for distributing the export quota for the second half of the season,” the report warns.
The union has already said that the grain exports from Russia exceed what it describes as ‘reasonable parameters based on the export potential of the season and demand on the world.’
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Can East Africa boost its own wheat output?
Since the COVID 19 global pandemic, lessons were learnt, among which, diversifying East Africa’s source of grains was on top of the list. While this meant looking at sources away from the Black Sea, it also meant increasing its own production and storage capacity.
To this end, the United States (US) Government offered a three-year grant worth US$2 million to the East African Grain Council (EAGC) to help it increase production in the region. The funding was done through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Economic Recovery and Reform Activity (ERRA) program and the overseer was the Trade Mark Africa (TMA).
That was the first disbursal, overall, the ERRA funding is US$75 million for a five-year program, to drive transformative trade and investment reforms in the East and Horn of Africa.
“A core part of this effort is to increase the ability of grain producers to export both regionally and to the rest of the world,” the USAID statement said at the time of the disbursement.
The USAID maintains that “East Africa’s grain sector has immense potential for food production and trade but has been hindered by low production rates, poor post-harvest management, and the devastating effects of climate change.”
To address these challenges, another program is underway, the East African wheat breeding pipeline. Started in 2022, CIMMYT, in partnership with the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) established a Joint Breeding Program, one of the first integrated breeding pipelines between CGIAR and National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) partners.
“In East Africa, an expanded testing network that spans over multiple research institutes in Kenya and Ethiopia has been established for Stage 1 and Stage 2 trials in network countries,” CIMMYT reports.
“This makes the pipeline a powerful driver of positive impacts, rapidly enhancing both farm productivity and production in target regions,” CIMMYT details in its subsequent report.
In Kenya specifically, reads the report, a genetic gain trial was conducted at two sites in 2023 with the Stage 1 trials evaluated across eight locations. These are being distributed to NARES partners to establish correlations between the breeding site in Kenya and the Target Population of Environments (TPEs).
This breeding pipeline also looks at the enhancement of genetic diversity to build resilience, adaptability, and quality enhancement to meet market and consumer demands, the report details..
All through this and next year, the trial will continue to establish a baseline for genetic gains and to enable the assessment of the breeding pipeline’s progress in the coming years.
“The anticipation is that accelerated breeding techniques will be implemented in Kenya by incorporating a three-year rapid generation bulk advancement scheme aimed at diminishing the time necessary for variety development and release,” details the report.
Finally, it is hoped that in the course of the three-year scheme, utilizing advanced data analytics and genomic selection approaches, the program will play a pivotal role in facilitating informed breeding decisions in the East African region.
While these efforts and others continue aimed at increasing productivity in the East Africa region, at the moment, current production capacity still does not meet the demand. East Africa remains heavily reliant to grains from the Balkans.
With weather reports showing no signs of the drought in Russia letting up, it can be expected, as forecasted, that the price of grains, especially that of wheat will soar for the rest of this and next year.
