Wheat Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992
Wheat price history in US dollars per metric ton (US Hard Red Winter, Gulf export), World Bank Pink Sheet, monthly since 1992. Covers the 2008 food crisis, the 2010-2011 Russian drought spike and the May 2022 record. CSV and Excel.
Wheat is one of the world’s three staple grains and the most widely traded, feeding billions directly as flour and bread. This dataset tracks the World Bank Pink Sheet price of US Hard Red Winter wheat for export from the Gulf, in US dollars per metric ton, with continuous monthly coverage since 1992. The largest exporters are the EU, Russia, the US, Canada, Australia, and Ukraine.
Dataset: Wheat Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-09-01
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
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Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0
Macro Takeaway
Wheat is a global staple, so its price is a direct input to food inflation and a recurring driver of political instability in import-dependent countries. Supply shocks come from drought in major exporters and, increasingly, from war and export bans. It moves alongside the other staple grains corn and rice.
The defining shock came in 2022. Russia and Ukraine together supply roughly a quarter to a third of world wheat exports, and the February invasion drove wheat to successive all-time highs from March to May 2022, peaking at 522.3 USD/t. The March rise, from 390.5 to 486.3 USD/t, is the largest monthly increase in dollar terms in the file. Earlier spikes came in the 2008 food crisis and the 2010 Russian drought and export ban; the 2022 surge then eased as the Black Sea Grain Initiative restored exports.
Dataset Overview
| Indicator | Wheat price, US Hard Red Winter, Gulf export (1992–2026) |
|---|---|
| Geography | US Gulf export price; EU, Russia, US, Canada, Australia and Ukraine (largest exporters); China and India (largest producers, mostly domestic) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Period | 1992–2026 |
| Variables | Date, wheat price (US dollars per metric ton) |
| Format | CSV, Excel (XLSX) |
| Sources | World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Wheat, US HRW” |
| Licence | World Bank data under CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Terms of Use for Datasets); Eco3min grants no licence of its own |
| Last updated | 2026-09-01 |
Dataset Variables
The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
date | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) | Observation month (first day of month) |
wheat_price | Float | US Hard Red Winter wheat, Gulf export price (monthly average), US dollars per metric ton |
Column names match the CSV headers exactly.
Download the Complete Dataset
The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats — monthly observations covering more than three decades.
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet
The underlying series is the “Wheat, US HRW” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.
The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per metric ton, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.
Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset
https://eco3min.fr/dataset/wheat-price.csv
This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.
Using the Dataset in Python
import pandas as pd url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/wheat-price.csv" df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"]) print(df.head()) print(df["wheat_price"].describe()) df.plot(x="date", y="wheat_price", title="Wheat Price", legend=False)
Using the Dataset in R
library(readr) url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/wheat-price.csv" df <- read_csv(url) head(df) summary(df$wheat_price)
Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.
Methodology
The World Bank’s Pink Sheet reports the Gulf export price of US No. 2 Hard Red Winter wheat in US dollars per metric ton. Up to June 2020 the quote referred to US No. 1 Hard Red Winter, ordinary protein, delivered at the US Gulf port for prompt or 30-day shipment.
Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.
An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.
Data Quality & Provider Notes
The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.
- Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
- Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
- Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
- Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ (median gap of about 14% over the common period, much larger in some months).
- Grade change in 2020. The quote moved from US No. 1 to No. 2 Hard Red Winter wheat after June 2020. Eco3min reproduces the World Bank column without adjusting across the switch.
- Alternative sources. CBOT and Euronext wheat futures give daily prices. The Pink Sheet also publishes US soft red winter and Canadian western red spring wheat, which trade at different levels.
Common Pitfalls When Using This Series
- Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
- Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
- Unit confusion. This series is in US dollars per metric ton; CBOT and Paris (Euronext) wheat futures are quoted per bushel or per tonne in other currencies, so comparison requires conversion (1 metric ton ≈ 36.74 bushels).
Historical Regimes
1992–2006: Low and stable. Ample global harvests kept annual averages between 112 and 208 USD/t; the sharpest move was a spike to 262.1 in May 1996.
2007–2008: Food-crisis spike. Drought in major exporters and a wave of export restrictions drove wheat above 400 USD/t for the first time in February 2008, to a peak of 439.7 in March, during the global food crisis. Read across decades, this price record shows how the wheat price tracks geopolitical stress rather than supply alone.
2009–2011: Russian drought. A severe 2010 Russian drought and export ban produced a second spike, from 157.7 USD/t in June 2010 to 355.3 in May 2011.
2012–2019: Surplus and decline. After a peak of 360.8 USD/t in November 2012, record harvests pulled prices down to 141.8 in December 2016. Annual averages then held between 167 and 210 USD/t from 2015 to 2019.
2020–2021: Pandemic and recovery. Covid disruptions and firm demand lifted prices from 198.4 USD/t in June 2020 to 379.5 in November 2021.
2022: All-time record. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove wheat to successive all-time highs from March to May 2022, peaking at 522.3 USD/t in May. March alone added 95.8 USD/t, the largest monthly increase in dollar terms in the file.
2023–2026: De-escalation, then a rebound. The Black Sea Grain Initiative and strong global harvests pulled prices down from 394.8 USD/t in February 2023 to 230.8 in October 2025, the lowest since August 2020 and below the 2021 average of 315.3. The price then rose to 330.0 in August 2026, the highest since July 2023.
Related Macroeconomic Datasets
- Corn Price — a fellow staple grain and feed crop
- Rice Price — the Asian staple grain, export-policy driven
- Soybeans Price — the major oilseed in the grain complex
- Sugar Price — a fellow food-inflation input
- Cocoa Price — a soft commodity with concentrated supply
Commodity Price Hub
This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.
Explore the Commodity Price Hub
Sources
- World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Wheat, US HRW” (CC BY 4.0)
- US Gulf export quotations for No. 2 Hard Red Winter wheat (No. 1 up to June 2020), the market basis of the Pink Sheet series
Dataset Reference
Last updated — 15 October 2026
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Source terms. World Bank data (Commodity Price Data, The Pink Sheet), licensed by the World Bank under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) with the additional terms of the World Bank Terms of Use for Datasets (https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/legal/terms-conditions/datasets). Attribution to the World Bank is required and must be passed on with any redistribution. Eco3min grants no licence of its own on these data, and no endorsement by the World Bank is implied. Full terms.