EVEN EUROPEAN WHEAT, TRADED ON MATIF IN EUROS, MUST ULTIMATELY COMPETE IN A GLOBAL MARKET WHERE MANY BUYERS THINK IN DOLLARS.
IN THIS SYSTEM, A STRONG EURO CAN BECOME A WEAK BARGAINING HAND.
For consumers, a stronger currency often sounds positive. It can make imports cheaper. For farmers, the picture is more complicated. Some inputs may benefit: machinery parts, crop protection products, fuel components, and fertilizers can be influenced by global pricing and imported supply chains.
But grain revenue feels the other side. If the farmer's crop must compete with dollar-priced Black Sea wheat, then a stronger euro makes European wheat look more expensive to the buyer. The farmer may be told that the market is soft, the port is full, Russian offers are cheaper, or export demand is slow. All may be true. Yet beneath those explanations is often the same quiet arithmetic: dollars converted into euros.
This is why EUR/USD belongs in the grain balance sheet. It is not just a line on a trader's screen. A move from 1.03 to 1.18 in EUR/USD changes the euro value of a $230/t wheat offer from around EUR 223/t to around EUR 195/t without any meaningful change in the dollar price. For a farmer selling 1,000 tonnes of wheat, that exchange-rate arithmetic translates into roughly €28,000 less in euro terms.
The Baltic farmer may never trade currencies. He may never quote Chicago wheat or Russian FOB offers. But the buyer across the table does not price in isolation. He prices against the port, the exporter, the global buyer, and the competing origin. Somewhere in that chain, dollars become euros.
And when the euro is strong, the farmer's euro price can become weaker.
Donatas Jankauskas CM Navigator E:
donatas.jankauskas@cmnavigator.com
Data note
Weekly observations cover 2018 through week 20 of 2026. Chicago wheat was converted from cents per bushel to USD/t, then divided by EUR/USD. Russian FOB wheat was converted from USD/t to EUR/t by dividing by EUR/USD. Correlations are calculated against Lithuanian average procurement prices in EUR/t.
Table 2. 2025 FX stress test: weakest vs strongest EUR/USD week Indicator
EUR/USD
LT procurement price MATIF wheat
Russian FOB wheat
Russian FOB wheat, in EUR Chicago wheat, in USD/t Chicago wheat, in EUR/t
Source: CM Navigator 17 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | Q2 Edition 2026
2025 W3 1.02818
EUR 223.01/t EUR 229.25/t USD 236.20/t EUR 229.73/t USD 199.48/t EUR 194.01/t
2025 W38 1.17936
EUR 187.53/t EUR 191.50/t USD 227.60/t EUR 192.99/t USD 193.57/t EUR 164.13/t
Change +14.7% -15.9% -16.5% -3.6%
-16.0% -3.0%
-15.4%
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38
