“We have seen prices come down a little. Cash prices ranged from $6.75 to $7 for most bids around the region, which is about 25 cents lower than in mid-March,” said Erica Olson, market development and research manager for the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

According to Olson, the main thing impacting prices in the market is that near-term demand is “pretty normal.” There have also been a few reports that indicate there are decent supplies, at least for the time being.

She noted there were also a few changes in the March WASDE report (World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates).

“Not unexpectedly, they increased our durum imports forecast by 5 million bushels. That would put us at 50 million,” she said. “However, that’s a bit misleading because not all of that is actual durum. Some of it is pasta.”

The main reason they did this is because there has been an increase of Canadian durum coming into the U.S. Although that is a normal occurrence every year, it may be a case of mills in the U.S. front loading supplies ahead of any potential tariffs.

“We’ve been hearing that some of those shipments have picked up pace just given the uncertainty with the tariffs, if they do indeed go into effect (this) week, so (there’s been) some increased buying,” she said.

“The thing about that is that even though it’s higher than normal right now, we don’t know if that will continue, especially if tariffs do come into effect. So, that overall import increase may or may not actually happen,” she added.

USDA also lowered U.S. durum export projections from 25 million bushels (MB) to 20 MB, a move that Olson said was not surprising.

“If we look at the most recent sales report, we’re at about 12.3 million bushels sold, which is down 30 percent on the year. And, as we have discussed this whole year, it is mostly due to a significant decline in sales to Algeria,” she said.

Another factor is that the U.S. is also facing some pretty strong competition from Canada. Their durum sales are up nearly 60 percent, including increased sales to Algeria.

“When I dug into their destinations, (their durum sales) are higher to Algeria so, unfortunately, we’ve lost some of that business,” she said. “I think price is a big (reason) and the Canadians just have such a large crop and, quite frankly, we’re kind of a smaller player.”

At the end of the day, the change puts U.S. durum ending stocks higher at 45 MB, which would be the highest level in six years.

“And that puts us at a 42 percent stocks-to-use ratio, which is fairly plentiful,” she said.

Over the next month or two, Olson noted that a lot of market focus is going to be on the North American plantings. Stats Canada recently came out with its first plantings estimate, which showed durum acreage there largely unchanged at 6.4 million acres. Here in the U.S., more will be known after the Planting Intentions Report comes out on March 31.

That said, Olson said there’s a chance that durum acres could increase slightly here.

“We’ve been hearing out in the country it is possible we may see a few more durum acres mainly due to the fact that prices are still at a premium to hard red spring wheat by $1.50 or more,” she said.

In other news, the International Grains Council (IGC) came out with its first outlook for the 2025 crop and projected overall world production will be down 1 percent. Looking at some of the different producing areas, Mexico was “a bit of a surprise” in the report as IGC estimates their production will be down almost 50 percent to a historic low of 22 MB. Olson said there were a few reasons for that, including that Mexico was dry last year; they have water issues similar to California and Arizona, so availability for irrigation is problematic; and in recent years their government has moved away from subsidizing durum production into other crops.

“We did see their production drop a bit last year and, in fact, we’ve seen some small sales from both the U.S. and Canada to Mexico,” she said. “Mexico was a decent sized exporter and now they’re switching to importing some. So, that will be very interesting to keep an eye on.”

The IGC is also forecasting production in Europe will be up by about 8 percent, while production will be slightly lower in Canada and the U.S. The IGC also has total North African production up about 10 percent.

“Basically, we’ve seen the drought conditions improve significantly (in North Africa), so one thing to watch there is that it may reduce demand from that region. Also, Algeria is still touting that they would like to become self-sufficient in durum, so that still seems to be a goal of theirs. That’s yet another thing to keep a close watch on,” she said.

The other big factor to watch is, of course, Turkey. Olson said there’s a marginal increase in the production forecast for them at this time, but it’s still well above their long-term average.

“That’s yet another thing to keep an eye on because their moisture situation has been well below normal. And some internal estimates are saying their production could be between 3-4 million (metric) tons depending on what happens with the weather in the next few months. Other forecasts still have them at 4.5 million (metric) tons,” she said, adding that Turkey’s durum exports have slowed down compared to where they were two years ago.

“The IGC has their exports for this year at under a million (metric) tons, with just over half of that amount being shipped already. Going into the 2025-26 year, it’s estimated again at a million tons, but there’s a lot of uncertainty. It just depends on how their crop turns out,” she said.

“At this time, the markets are pretty quiet, but if you dig into some of the data,

there are definitely some things worth watching in terms of how production is faring in other regions of the world. And then, of course, what our acreage ends up being here in North America and how the weather pans out,” she concluded.