CBC News produced a news interview featuring senior research fellow Joe Glauber. Glauber explained that Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and unfortunately about 20 million tons of grain has not moved out of the ports. That grain is building up so it is affecting last year’s crop, this year’s crop, and strong incentive not to plant for the next year. We have seen record high prices in the last six months.
Will other countries be able to backfill with other problems (drought conditions, etc.), but agriculture is subject to the weather? Dry weather in the Midwest, southern plains, and dry weather in Europe, so there’s a lot of concern and we won’t see a big rebound in world supplies for at least another 12 months or so, so price volatility will continue to be high.