The world's top five wheat exporters should retain their shares of global trade over the next 10 years but will face stiff competition from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Black Sea suppliers, a study showed on Tuesday.
Argentina, Australia, Canada, the United States and the 25-country European Union would dominate the world wheat market to 2015, with their combined shares altering only slightly.
But rising exports from Ukraine and Kazakhstan were creating growing competition for exports, said the study, co-authored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
"The United States retains its position as the world's largest wheat exporter to 2015, but its market share along with that of Canada falls in favour of Australia, the EU, Argentina and a number of suppliers from the Black Sea area," it said.
World wheat imports would increase steadily over the coming decade by a broad range of countries, mainly in Third World countries, it said, citing Africa particularly Egypt and Nigeria) Brazil and Mexico as particular growth markets.
Countries with rising per capita incomes and populations but which also faced constraints on expanding domestic production would also see higher wheat imports through to 2015, it said. The study projected that wheat imports from developing countries would increase steadily from 89.1 million tonnes this year to 103.8 million by 2015.
In contrast, OECD country imports would rise to 25.6 million tonnes over this period, up by just two million tonnes. Good availability of cheap low-quality wheat available in stocks in 2006 would allow these types to compete with maize as a preferred animal feed, boosting feed demand and imports for feed wheat in some countries such as South Korea, it said.