Food, in brief

Since July, attacks on ships and ports have brought grain cargoes out of the Black Sea almost to a standstill. [1]

Russia is on track to export about 1 million tonnes of wheat in September, against 5 million a year ago, on estimates by Kpler, a company that tracks commodity shipments. [1]

Ukraine will ship about 1 million tonnes of wheat this month, half of what it shipped last September. [1]

Wheat futures in Chicago, the world's benchmark price for wheat bought for later delivery, have risen about 40% from their June lows to a three-and-a-half-year high. [1]

Many importers held off buying for months, hoping Russia and Ukraine would agree to let grain ships through. [1] Their stocks are now running thin, especially in Asia. [1]

Indonesia, the world's second-biggest wheat importer, got about 60,000 tonnes from the Black Sea this month, against half a million tonnes last September. [1]

Indonesian millers now pay 20% to 25% more for Australian wheat than they paid for their Black Sea cargoes. [1] Some are buying small container loads instead of whole ships. [1]

In Vietnam, the milling company Golden Wheat lost four Black Sea cargoes, about a fifth of what it uses in a year. [2] It found wheat from Bulgaria to replace two of them. [2]

Egypt, the world's biggest wheat buyer, imported 143,870 tonnes in the first half of September, against 876,139 tonnes a year earlier. [1] Its supply minister says it is turning to France and other European sellers. [1]

Many Egyptian mills are running at 30% of capacity, an Alexandria trader said, because a shipping deal could cut prices by up to a fifth. [1]

The grain exists. The US agriculture department projects Russia's and Ukraine's combined wheat stocks at a 33-year high. [6]

Wheat is only about a tenth of what a British loaf costs to make, and energy and other bakery costs also push the bread price up. [7]

Why it matters. Watch for any grain-shipping agreement between Russia and Ukraine before the Southern Hemisphere harvest at the end of the year; one trader said a deal could cut prices by $50 to $60 a tonne. [1]

Ukraine now sends most of its grain through three ports on the Danube river, because Russian attacks have in effect shut its Black Sea ports. [3] Those sea ports used to handle 90% of its exports. [3] Ships waiting to enter the Sulina Canal, the Danube's way in from the sea, have queued for more than two weeks. [3] Shippers said on Wednesday that officials will start clearing ships while they are still at sea, not inside the canal. [3] Shipping grain from the Danube to Egypt cost about $105 a tonne on 11 September, against $30 in July. [3]

Why it matters. Delivery from Ukraine to Egypt, a big buyer, has stretched from 12 days to more than a month, shippers say. [3] Ukraine has exported about 930,000 tonnes of grain so far this September, against 1.78 million tonnes in the same days last year. [3]

The EBRD, a development bank that covers 41 mostly emerging economies, now expects them to grow 2.5% this year. [4] That is its second cut in a row. [4] Its chief economist, Beata Javorcik, named diesel, wheat and the cost of borrowing as the pressure points. [4] She said world wheat prices are up about 30% since February, as attacks cut Ukraine's exports to their lowest since April 2022. [4]

Why it matters. The bank says Ukraine could lose $5.5 billion of wheat, seed-oil and metal exports this year, about 2.5% of its economy. [4] Farmers who cannot sell may not afford fertiliser for the next planting, and countries such as Egypt that pay part of the bread price face a bigger bill. [4]

In the parts of Sudan its army holds, the Sudanese pound has lost nearly half its value since early summer. [8] It traded at about 7,500 to the dollar on the black market on Tuesday, against 4,100 in May and about 600 before the war. [8] The army and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, have been at war for nearly three and a half years. [8] Importers buy fuel and wheat with black-market dollars. [8] A litre of cooking oil went from 17,000 pounds to 23,000 in one week. [8]

Why it matters. Much of the gold, livestock and oilseeds that earn Sudan dollars comes from areas the paramilitaries hold, where the pound has stayed near 4,200. [8] A school head in Omdurman says his monthly pay, once worth $800, is now worth about $70. [8]

Israel's military uprooted Palestinian olive trees with bulldozers in Deir Nizam, a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on Wednesday. [9] The olive harvest there usually starts in the first week of October. [9] Nather Tamimi, one landowner, said the land he farms with his brothers produces 120 drums of olive oil. [9] The military had not answered Reuters by Wednesday evening. [9] In the past it has said it clears trees to prevent ambushes on its troops. [9]

Why it matters. Farming is about 8% of the Palestinian economy and more than 60,000 jobs, and olives are its backbone, according to the Palestinian agriculture ministry. [9] Palestinian human rights groups say uprooting the trees takes away farmers' income. [9]

Sea temperatures in the middle of the tropical Pacific were about 2.9C above normal in early September, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote in the journal Nature. [10] That is more than 1C warmer than at the same point in the strong El Nino years of 1997 and 2015. [10] El Nino brings drought to some regions and floods to others. [10] Forecasts give a more than 90% chance this one will be the strongest since records began in the 1870s. [10]

Why it matters. In the four strongest El Ninos from 1980 to 2016, southern Africa had about an 80% chance of a drier than normal rainy season. [10] South Africa's maize harvest fell by nearly half in 2015-16, and planting there starts in October. [10]

Potato harvests in Britain and Europe could be 3.5 million tonnes lower than expected after an extremely dry summer, an article in The Conversation says, citing recent reports. [7] That is about 5kg for every person on the continent. [7] Potatoes need a lot of water, and people buy about the same amount whatever the price, so a smaller crop tends to push prices up. [7] Leafy greens also suffered, and UK wheat yields fell well below recent averages. [7]

Why it matters. Cocoa is also expected to rise again after a poor crop this year, and a bar of Dairy Milk rose more than 60% in price compared with 2021. [7] Chocolate makers may swap cocoa butter for cheaper fats such as palm oil. [7]

The US agriculture department said on 17 September that dairy checkoff money will no longer fund environmental, social and governance projects. [11] A checkoff is a compulsory charge on farmers that pays for promotion, research and nutrition education for their product. [11] The Innovation Center for US Dairy, set up with that money, had set greenhouse-gas and net-zero targets. [11] The department also told its marketing service to check that no other checkoff pays for such goals. [11]

Why it matters. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said farmers' fees should build demand for their products, not what she called radical climate agendas. [11] The department still allows checkoff money for office work that does not serve those goals. [11]

The US agriculture department said on 23 September that farms in Hawaii were badly hit by Hurricane Lowell. [12] It pointed farmers to its disaster programmes, which pay for livestock that died, lost feed, damaged beehives and fruit trees that need replanting. [12] Farmers have until 1 March 2027 to report this year's livestock and feed losses. [12] Claims to replant trees must be filed within 90 days. [12]

Why it matters. Farmers in counties declared disaster areas can also get emergency loans at low interest. [12] The department's notice gives no estimate of the damage. [12]

Cuts to SNAP, the US food-stamp programme, are reaching families before the US midterm elections, the New York Times reports. [13] The cuts came in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Trump's main tax-and-spending law, whose spending and tax breaks total more than $3 trillion. [13] Ashley Whitlock, a substitute teacher in Belmont, North Carolina, lost her SNAP benefits in the summer. [13] A free grocery store in Newark, New Jersey, could help people who were cut off. [13]

Why it matters. The law cut food aid, Medicaid and health subsidies to pay for part of its tax cuts. [13] So people judge it by whether they got a tax cut or lost a benefit. [13]

It is harvest time in California's wine country, and many grape growers are struggling to sell their grapes because Americans are drinking less wine, AP reports. [14] Some growers are tearing out vineyards their families have farmed for generations. [14]

Why it matters. The fall in wine drinking reaches the farm at harvest, when growers find no buyer for grapes already on the vine. [14]

A satellite programme that helped Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan watch for floods and landslides lost its funding when the US cut foreign aid, AP reports. [15] SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya was run by USAID, NASA and a research centre in Kathmandu, and ended in January 2025. [15] The US State Department says its tools still work through that centre. [15] A new report by the consultancy Systemiq says Himalayan glaciers are losing ice 65% faster than a decade ago. [15]

Why it matters. The research centre, ICIMOD, says the changing mountains put food, water and energy at risk for nearly 2 billion people living in or below them. [15] Aid from the richest donor countries fell 23% in 2025, the largest drop on record. [15]