Wheat, falling prices put sowings at risk

High production costs, competition from abroad and excessively low quotations are putting next year's wheat harvest at risk. In the Italian fields, as every autumn, the sowing operations that will give rise to the 2026 harvest are about to start, but uncertainty among farmers is very high and some are already thinking of abandoning the land, or turning to more profitable crops. With peace of mind for the production of national wheat to be used for pasta made in Italy.

The alarm comes from Coldiretti and starts from a datum: in the last two years the price of durum wheat has fallen by about 30-35%. The latest quotation on the Foggia exchange speaks of 290-295 euros per tonne. Such a low price has not been seen since August 2022. With revenues unable to cover the costs incurred by farms, the risk is that large areas of the country will be abandoned. Among the most disadvantaged areas, according to Coldiretti, there would be Puglia - in particular the province of Foggia - Sicily and Basilicata, where cereal farms are often located in inland areas with no production alternatives and therefore more exposed to the risk of desertification.

In Italy, the 2025 wheat campaign, after a difficult 2024, had also managed to recover something, posting a 7% increase to 3.7 million tonnes. 'The main problem remains massive imports of foreign product,' says Gianluca Lelli, CEO of Cai-Consorzi agrari d'Italia, which to date is Italy's largest wheat storer. In the first five months of 2025, the arrival of durum wheat from abroad increased by 18%: Canadian wheat, in particular, more than doubled (+119%) compared to the previous year. "This is not the first year," says Lelli, "that several countries, from Canada to Turkey to Russia, have flooded the Italian market with their productions just before our harvest season, causing prices to fall. Added to all this now is the low dollar, which makes some imports from abroad even more competitive, given that wheat transactions take place in dollars'.

There has therefore been a speculation effect on Italian wheat, but - recalls Lelli - there is also an aspect of unfair competition: 'There is a lack of reciprocity: on the one hand Italian farmers have to comply with strict standards, and on the other foreign producers are able to place their wheat on the market at lower prices using practices that are not permitted here, starting with glyphosate in Canada'. At the same time, costs for Italian farmers have risen: 'Even though we are no longer at the peaks of the first phase of the war between Russia and Ukraine,' Lelli recalls, 'fertiliser prices have been pushed up by the price of oil and inflation. The current wheat quotations are not only low for our farmers: even Turkey, which at this time last year had already flooded the European market with its product, now prefers not to export until a higher wheat selling price has been reached on the international markets'.

And pasta made in Italy, what will it be made with if next year there is a lack of domestic raw material? 'Those pasta producers who rely on supply chain contracts will have no problems,' says Lelli, 'because these are always rewarding contracts for farmers and no one will give up sowing. In Italy, however, there are still too many small pasta makers who want to produce with made-in-Italy wheat, but who stock up on the market at the last moment, hoping to bring home lower prices'.