As we discussed in Commodore Research's most recent Weekly Executive Report, The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its latest forecast for the current 2025/26 season and is now predicting that global coarse grain, wheat, soybean, and soymeal exports will total 737.6 million tons. This is 3.5 million tons (1%) more than was predicted a month ago and would mark a year-on-year increase of 33 million tons (5%). Significant is that grain trade expectations continue to become more bullish. Overall, we have been stressing that a return of growth in overall global grain trade (and growth in all major dry bulk commodity trade) has been needed considering that the dry bulk fleet this year had been set to grow by a net addition of at least 350 vessels. For our market, it has been very helpful that this season is seeing grain trade shift back to finding growth. In the 2024/25 season, a year-on-year contraction of 5.9 million tons (-1%) occurred.
Of the total grain trade, the USDA is now forecasting that global coarse grain (the vast majority of which are corn) exports in 2025/26 will total 249.3 million tons. This would mark a year-on-year increase of 2 million tons (1%) from the 2024/25 season. Coarse grain exports will remain the global grain market’s largest cargo by volume. A large year-on-year increase in coarse grain exports is expected from the United States. A moderate year-on-year increase is expected from Argentina and Ukraine. Small year-on-year increases are expected from Ukraine and Brazil.
