Wheat prices jump following collapse of major dam in southern Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — The collapse of a major dam in southern Ukraine sent global prices of wheat and corn higher early Tuesday.

Wheat prices gained 2.4% in early trading Tuesday at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, to $6.39 a bushel. The cost of corn rose more than 1% (to $6.04 a bushel) and oats gained 0.73% ($3.46 per unit). Prices were higher earlier in the day, but faded. The destruction of Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, which sits on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow controls, raised anxiety about a potential disruption to global supplies.

“Ukraine has historically been one of the major exporters in the world wheat market,” Joe Janzen, assistant professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, told The Associated Press, also pointing to the country’s historic corn production. “Anytime there’s news out of that part of the world, the market is sensitive to that.”

There are massive agricultural fields in Southern Ukraine where the dam burst. The collapse has endangered crops in the country’s breadbasket and threatened drinking water supplies, with officials also warning of a looming environmental disaster — pointing to oil escaping from the dam machinery and significant flooding.

Andrey Sizov, managing director of Black Sea agricultural markets research firm SovEcon, said the dam’s collapse looked “like a big escalation with dire consequences and huge headline risk.”*