The International Grains Council (IGC) is forecasting the highest global grain production ever for 2025/26 at 2,376 million tons - driven by record harvests of wheat (808 million tons, +8 million tons) and maize (1,276 million tons, +48 million tons) compared to the previous year.
Total consumption also increased to 2,376 million tons (+1.5%), which corresponds to a balanced global balance. Final stocks remained at 582 million tons, which corresponds to 24.49% of consumption (-0.33 percentage points compared to the previous year).
Despite falling prices for wheat and rice, price increases for corn and soybeans led to a slight rise in the IGC price index (GOI) of 0.9% compared to June. In a year-on-year comparison, however, the index remains 3.4% below the previous year's level.
The IGC is maintaining its forecast for global grain trade in 2025/26 at 430 million tons (+1.6% year-on-year). The main driver is rising demand from Asia, particularly due to a slight increase in Chinese imports of maize (+1.0 million tons to 8.0 million tons) and wheat (+2.0 million tons to 6.2 million tons) following the slump in 2024/25.
Despite this dynamic, the IGC expects the eight leading exporting countries (including Argentina, the EU, Russia and the US) to build up stocks by 12 million tons to 140 million tons, which corresponds to 24.1% of global grain reserves.
EU wheat exports are revised downwards by 1.0 million tons to 32.0 million tons compared to June, but remain well above the previous year's level (+4.8 million tons). At the same time, the IGC reduces the import forecast by 2.1 million tonnes to 6.9 million tonnes, which stabilizes the trade balance.
The harvest estimate remains at 137.2 million tons (+17.8 million tons year-on-year), with domestic consumption rising slightly. The EU final stockpile falls by 1.9 million tons to 10.9 million tons; the stock-to-use ratio remains at a very low level of 7.6%.
Despite a smaller wheat harvest (-1.2 million tons to 52.5 million tons), US ending stocks rose to 24.3 million tons, which corresponds to a high stock-to-use ratio of 44.6%. Globally, this ratio is 32.6 %, and 15.5 % for the top exporters.
The IGC is also forecasting a significant increase in maize stocks in the USA by 9.0 million tons to 43.1 million tons. The harvest is expected to rise to 398.9 million tons, with comparatively low export growth.
Although China is reducing its inventories, it remains the dominant stock player:
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Wheat: decline of 2.3 million tons to 134.7 million tons = 90.7% domestic demand, 50.9% of world stocks
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Corn: decline of 5.8 million tons to 178.4 million tons = 56.9% of own requirements, 64.1% of world stocks
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Brazil remains the second-largest corn exporter with 39.0 million tons
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Ukraine:
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Wheat exports 2025/26: 16.0 million tons (-0.8 million tons compared to the previous year)
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Corn trade: increase in exports to 23.9 million tons with higher harvest (28.6 million tons) and reduced domestic consumption
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The IGC lowers its harvest forecast by 1.7 million tons to 60.3 million tons, leaving imports at 20.5 million tons. Consumption decreases slightly to 78.4 million tons and final storage to 7.0 million tons.
