The wheat and rice market

 The wheat market has posted the top gains on trepidation a necessity to conserve supplies for national needs will restrict exports in several key producing nations, Ukraine and Russia in particular.We've seen increasing talk that in the wake of this coronavirus many countries might begin to hoard supplies of agricultural commodities and then fuel that a food scare similar to what has been observed in the 2007-2008 period when food riots occurred in a number of countries.Remember that wheat and rice are the two primary eaten foods but the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service newest Grain: World Markets and Trade book prices have rallied for both though international supplies are at record levels and the share of stocks to ingestion is historically large.Major producers like China, the European Union, India, Russia, and the United States have produced at rates which are more than sufficient to meet increasing global demand.Furthermore, wheat harvests in important producing countries in the Northern Hemisphere are only a couple of months away.Wheat ending stocks will also be projected at a record 292.8 million with China holding about half of stocks.As for rice, while production levels are down year-over-year at 496 million metric tons, a bumper 2019/20 global rice crop is still anticipated and even with lesser manufacturing, entire supplies are upwards from the previous year due to record carryin stocks with 2019/20 stocks in a record 181.6 million metric tons.The attached picture shows the world wheat and rice stocks-to-use ratios with and without China and while planet wheat China wheat stocks-to-use ratio is the tightest because the 2012/13 season, we are not anywhere near the very low levels for the two worldwide wheat and rice that was found from the mid 2000's.