Durum prices slide as harvest swings into full gear

Producers know that typically when harvest starts, lower prices will follow simply because there are more supplies becoming readily available. Durum prices have held stronger, longer than many other commodities this year, but are now sliding lower.

“Prices continue to slide as we make a bigger carve into harvest. Part of that is to be expected just with new crop supplies coming into the pipelines and demand not fully defined yet, and just in sympathy with the overall commodity complex,” said Jim Peterson, executive director for the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

“There’s really no stellar commodity price levels right now, so it’s a pretty challenging time for producers with input costs where they are, along with a little trade uncertainty,” he continued. “And even though it’s a good harvest with pretty good yields in a lot of areas, the price decline

offsets the good yields.”

Prices were down to $5.65 in some locations for top end milling quality durum, although there were a few locations still holding close to that $6 range. Overall, the mid- to upper $5 range seemed to catch most of the bids. And there’s still the possibility that prices could slide even lower.

“We may not be done with the pressure yet,” he said, pointing out that harvest was about 66 percent complete in Montana, which is ahead of the five-year pace, but there was just more drought impact in the Montana crop resulting in lower yields and forced maturity. But that also makes for a little quicker harvest pace.

North Dakota’s durum harvest was about 30 percent complete, which is slightly behind the five-year average.

“But we’ve had a good run of weather over the past week, and it looks like the next 10 days will have pretty favorable weather, so I would expect that (harvest pace) to accelerate,” he said. “Yield reports are coming in as expected. They’re not well above expectations, but it’s a pretty solid crop in a lot of areas.”

The latest USDA estimate for North Dakota has yield at 47 bushels per acre, which seems a little strong to Peterson who said there were a number of areas that were hurt by drought early on. But, if USDA’s estimate holds, it would be equal to last year.

Montana’s most recent yield estimate was 27 bushels per acre, which is up from 21 bushels in July and that’s where their yields are coming in so far. Last year’s yield was 23 bushels per acre.

The total U.S. durum crop is estimated at 87 million bushels (MB), up from 80 MB last year.

On a positive note, the most recent supply and demand report from USDA shows projected imports at 40 MB, which is down from 51 MB a year ago. USDA also raised export projections to 25 MB compared to 19 MB in the previous year. Domestic food use was cut to 85 MB from 88 MB in 2024.

“We’re probably seeing some impact of the price spread that durum has had to hard red spring wheat over this past year, which, at times, reached as high as $1.50 premium. There are certain pasta products that can substitute spring wheat for durum, and it appears we are seeing a little of that,” he said.

“Unfortunately, if the current production and demand forecasts hold, when you add all those numbers together, our ending stocks of durum by June of 2026 would be 38 million bushels vs. 28 million this past June, and 21 million in June of 2024. So, definitely more supplies are available to the market and we’re seeing that reflected in prices,” he added.

On the demand side, U.S. export sales of durum are at 6.2 MB, which is equal to last year. Mexico is our top market at nearly 2 MB vs. zero a year ago. Italy is second at 1.3 MB, but their imports are down from 2.9 MB last year. Venezuela is at 1 MB vs. zero a year ago, and then Haiti, Chile and Panama combined are at 1.1 MB vs. zero a year ago.

“Exports are playing out the way we anticipated,” he said.

Looking at the world scenario, the world is looking at a seven-year high in world durum production this year. That’s being driven by the European Union and North Africa, which had larger crops this year.

“There were no major quality issues (with their crops), so their import demand is obviously expected to contract,” he explained. “Right now, that’s where the world market is – it’s looking to see if there’s going to be increases in enough other areas to offset the expected lower demand from the EU and North Africa. Mexico is one of those and we’re already seeing that.”

Another positive on world trade is that Turkey looks to be less of a player than in recent years, so that should be beneficial going forward.

Peterson said the story for durum market trends will be written in the next 2-3 weeks. That’s because the Canadian harvest is less than 10 percent complete and just getting rolling and the U.S. harvest is ongoing.

“(Canada’s) had some rain impacts recently so there are some questions on what the quality of their crop will be. Their yields will not be at the levels of North Dakota,” he said. “They went through a pretty good drought stretch, but the market already had been anticipating that, so it’s whether the yields come in better than expected and whether there are any significant quality impacts from the rain.

“They’re still the big driver on the world durum market and so that’s kind of an unknown right now, as well as the tail end of our harvest. We’re not 50 percent complete yet in North Dakota,” he continued. “The forecast does look favorable to allow good progress and no quality impacts from rain. But, again, it’s a little premature to paint the picture of our crop yet. Unfortunately, we’ve seen impacts on prices and hopefully we will reach a bottom shortly and can start building back as demand is better defined.”