International Price Trends

Although somewhat isolated from international markets by large distances and a strong domestic wheat market, New Zealand wheat growers need to be aware of the true international market indicators, the United States Futures Markets. United Wheatgrowers (NZ) Ltd has chosen to present weekly data from the wheat contracts of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) futures market.

This market does not necessarily represent the grade of wheat that New Zealand users may wish to import, and in fact represents near feed wheat quality, but is the most liquid of the markets trading wheat (ie has sufficient trading of futures contracts to allow unrestricted entry to and exit from the market).

New Zealand wheat buyers use this price, adjusted for various basis, as an indication of the cost of importing wheat. Basis is a term in the futures trade for any adjustment made to a price resulting from a variance from standard terms of contract. In the case of the CBOT wheat futures, basis for New Zealand wheat buyers would include premiums for protein, white wheat, and transport across the United States and Pacific Ocean. Ideally this information would be presented, but a public source of this changeable data is not available.

Data from the nearest trading month is presented in United States cents per bushel, the CBOT wheat contract standard, to allow trends to be seen without the influence of exchange rate and other basis. This gives an indication of the current international price trends.

Data from the July contract in the next year is also given as an indication of price expectations following our next harvest. Both prices are then adjusted for exchange rate, and an indication of Pacific Ocean freight cost is given. This adjusted price gives an indication of international price trends in New Zealand dollars per tonne.

Although derived from the United States futures markets, Australian Wheat Board Ltd prices also offer a good indication of import costs of Milling Wheats. United Wheatgrowers (NZ) Ltd has traditionally published the ASW (Australian Standard White) card price as an international indicator. In this data range the ASW has been replaced by the AH (Australian Hard) card price as a grade that better represents the quality of milling wheat generally imported from Australia.

The AH card price is given as FOB (Free on Board East Coast Australia) in New Zealand dollars per tonne, and then adjusted for transport to Auckland mills. As an indication of forward pricing the AH grower spot price for the next harvest season is also given, adjusted for transport to Auckland mills.

Domestic Price Trends

Various domestic grain prices are given as an indication of current prices for contract and free grain. Contract prices are an average of available contracts, based on delivery in the current month. Further details of wheat contracts are available on the contracts page.

Free prices are an indication of actual sales of free grain, based on delivery in the current month. Agri-fax source the domestic pricing data from Midlands Seed Ltd.

Import Statistics

United Wheatgrowers (NZ) Ltd source wheat import statistics to keep growers informed of the actual historical volumes of wheat imported to New Zealand ports. These statistics also include the average cost of the wheat, derived from importers documented declarations and adjusted for a standard cost of freight.

The data on this page is a summary of the last two years imports of wheat, other than durum, and the current years data to date.