Same price of ten years ago, higher costs: « So investing in durum wheat is no longer worthwhile »

For the durum wheat Time stopped. In a decade that saw the spread of wars and pandemics, with several years characterized by the return of inflation (which could now dat again with the International duties war in progress), there is a price that has returned exactly at the levels of 10 years ago: that of durum wheat, the raw material from which the Italian dish par excellence is obtained, the pasta. At the Goods bag of the Foggia Chamber of Commercethe most important for cereals, the durum wheat up to share 305-310 euros per ton in June 2015 and continues to quote 305-310 in Tonnata in May 2025, as sanctioned by the detection of Wednesday 28 May, the last of the old vintage before the wheat of the new campaign. Thirty euros per quintal, the equivalent of two pizzas at the table or ten ice cream to the current price lists (in 2015, perhaps, they could take more, both pizzas and ice cream).

No cheaper

With these prices, for many agricultural entrepreneurs, the cultivation of durum wheat loses convenience: according to the data collected by Agricultural Consortiums of Italy And Coldirettiin the face of a return to the most satisfactory made of the land, thanks to favorable climatic conditions, for durum wheat in the last year there has been an average contraction of the surfaces cultivated in Italy between 6% and 8%, with peaks up to -10% in the South and in the islands.

The weight of imports

«The dynamics of durum wheat prices – he explains Felice Adinolfiprofessor of agricultural economy ofUniversity of Bologna and director of Study Center Disseminates – They are strongly conditioned by imports from foreign countries that often do not comply with the same standards of internal productions, therefore determining evident phenomena of unfair competition towards the Italian production fabric. The consequences of all this are prices that for Italian wheat in some cases do not even cover production costs ». In the last year – Ismea data Elaborated by popular – over 614 thousand tons have been imported (about a quarter of the total) from Canada -particularly in the sights of Coldiretti for the use of glyphosate in pre-cacculted-and 337 thousand tons from Türkiye (more than 12%) and 287 thousand tons of Kazakhstan (about 11%).

The fears for the future

« In recent months, a lot of wheat has been downloaded from other countries and therefore now the mills do not need to buy it – agrees Giorgio Mercuri, president of Confcooperative Puglia – having already sufficiently quantitative of goods in stock: the demand is less than the offer and therefore the prices remain low. If the current ones remain, moreover, there is likely that there is a lower investment of durum wheat crops. « 

The drop in profitability

But what is close to businesses, rather than the listing itself, is the profitability. If the costs are maintained at the most dynamic and higher levels compared to the trend, cable, the prices – is the alarm of Confagricoltura – will be substantially affected by the gross margin of the crops. And therefore convenience to invest in durum wheat. Since 2020, he still highlights the Confagricoltura Study Centerthe price of urea, one of the most used fertilizers, grew by over 46%, that of the ammonium nitrate of 81%and that of the agricultural diesel by 42%. The solution? For Confagricoltura it is « giving greater value to our productions, without demonizing the imports that compensate for the shortcomings of our raw materials ». Otherwise goodbye durum wheat.