World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

The purpose of this monthly update is to provide near to real time insights into the rapidly changing food security environment, particularly food price and its impact at the household level.

This paper reviews wheat market dynamics in the Central Asia region. As a region whose countries experience perennial food deficits, trade plays a central role in ensuring adequate food availability. The paper is the result of fieldwork undertaken in spring 2011 to establish a better understanding of the dynamics, structure, trends, and constraints confronting the wheat marketing sector in the region, and to better understand the role that wheat trade plays in ensuring food security for the region. For the purposes of this study, the Central Asia region includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This report is from a field Mission to four Central Asian Republics was undertaken from June 22nd to August 3rd 2008 on behalf of WFP Cairo Regional Office, with the purpose of conducting a Regional Market Survey.