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Australian grain and oilseed production for the 2025/26 season is forecast to rise by 5.2m tonnes year-on-year, reaching 64.2m tonnes. This growth is underpinned by above-average rainfall across key producing states – notably Western Australia, which may see its second-largest crop on record, and northern New South Wales. Positive soil moisture levels in Queensland and northern New South Wales have further supported growth. The 8.8% increase in tonnage is largely driven by improved wheat and canola yields, alongside a significant rise in barley cropping area.Australian grain exports face intense competition, as global production remains high, especially for wheat and barley. Large harvests in Russia, the EU, and the US have weighed on global markets, while carryover stocks continue to build in major exporting nations, such as Australia and Canada. Locally, the combination of a sizable new crop and old crop carryover is expected to limit upside potential for Australian wheat prices.With a potential record-high barley crop this season, the pace of exports will be crucial in shaping market dynamics. Last year's volatility served as a clear reminder of how quickly prices can shift. Domestic demand is anticipated to remain firm, supported by the cattle and sheep sectors, which tend to buffer the impact of abundant US corn supply on global feed grain markets.Canola exports to the EU may soften compared to last season due to a recovery in European production. However, demand for stock replenishment and a year-on-year decline in sunflower supply are expected to support non-GM canola prices. Chinese demand for Australian canola may resurge in 2026, improving local prospects for genetically modified canola production.Farm input costs continue to pressure farm budgets, and cropping area decisions may shift again next season. With global pulse supply expanding and South Asia enjoying a favourable monsoon, pulse prices are easing, and canola may rise as a preferred crop among Australian growers. Looking ahead, we expect long-term weather patterns and global trade developments to be key points to watch over the summer. As of late September, forecasts suggest a chance of above-average rainfall during late spring and early summer for the east coast.
China’s pork prices have fallen to fresh lows ahead of the Golden Week holiday, with a bleak demand outlook offering little relief to a sector already struggling with excess supply and sluggish consumption, Bloomberg reported.Wholesale pork prices are on track to hit their lowest level in 18 months, signaling that recent government efforts to curb production have yet to stabilize the market. Despite expectations that millions of Chinese consumers will travel, shop, and dine during the eight-day holiday starting Wednesday, wholesalers and retailers have refrained from the large-scale stockpiling typically seen during this period.Beijing has been pressing major pig producers to cut capacity to help support prices. Pork, a staple in Chinese diets, is also a key component of the consumer price index, making the industry’s weakness central to broader efforts to combat deflationary pressures. “Pork consumption improved a little in September, but hog supplies have remained ample… it will therefore be difficult for prices to rebound significantly in the fourth quarter,” Guangda Futures noted. Government data show sow herds remained elevated at 40.38 million heads in August, virtually unchanged from the prior month.China’s most-traded pig futures continued to slide after a 3% drop on Monday. Pork prices have plunged 21% over the past year, leaving farmers with average losses of about 162 yuan ($23) per pig, Bloomberg reported. Analysts at Mysteel suggested downstream demand could gradually improve with holiday dining, but time is running short for the sector to see meaningful relief.
Brazil's agricultural sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by technology. The country has become the second-largest destination for agtech investments in Latin America. Its growing network of startups offers solutions across the entire production chain from input purchasing to post-harvest logistics.Over the past decades, transformative technologies such as lime application, biotechnology, and precision agriculture have reshaped farming practices, especially in the Cerrado region. These innovations have enabled the expansion of double-cropping systems and improved resilience against agronomic risks.Today, Brazil is entering a new era of smart agriculture, marked by digitalization, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). Emerging technologies including biological inputs, robotics, blockchain, and big data are helping producers optimize operations and enhance traceability. They are also often cited as ways to reduce environmental impact.Despite climate variability and market volatility, Brazilian farmers are increasingly adopting tech solutions to boost productivity and manage risks. The country's grain production growth is now driven more by efficiency than land expansion, with record yields in soybeans, corn, and cotton.This trajectory positions Brazil to play a key role in advancing sustainable, tech-driven agriculture by leveraging its natural advantages with innovation to address global food security and climate challenges.However, structural challenges including limited access to credit, regional disparities in infrastructure, and labor shortages continue to affect the scalability and inclusiveness of technology adoption and will need to be addressed to ensure broader impact.
USDA’s latest Food Price Outlook report highlights a familiar theme for consumers and policymakers: while overall food inflation projections are moderating, beef continues to climb at a pace that makes it the most consequential driver of higher grocery bills in 2025 and 2026.For 2025, USDA now projects all food prices will rise 3.0%, a notch above the 2.9% forecast in August. Grocery (food at home) prices are expected to increase 2.4%, compared with the 2.2% projected last month. Restaurant (food away from home) prices remain unchanged at 3.9%.
Looking forward to 2026, USDA expects all food prices to climb 2.7%, compared with 2.2% previously. Grocery inflation is now forecast at 2.3%, nearly doubling the prior outlook of 1.2%. Restaurant prices are seen rising 3.3%, steady from the earlier forecast.
When stacked against the 20-year averages — 2.9% for all food, 3.5% for restaurants, and 2.6% for groceries — the new forecasts show 2025 all food and restaurant prices coming in above trend, while groceries fall below. By 2026, however, all three categories are expected to remain under their long-run averages.
Beef and veal prices remain the dominant force shaping the outlook. USDA noted retail beef and veal prices in August rose for the eighth consecutive month, up 2.7% from July and nearly 14% higher year-over-year.
At the farm and wholesale levels, price pressures remain intense:
- Farm-level cattle prices climbed 2% from July to August and are now up 26.5% year-over-year.
- Wholesale beef prices are up 21.1% year-over-year, with USDA forecasting a 22.5% rise in 2025 and an additional 12% increase in 2026.
These increases were not unexpected. USDA emphasized that the contraction of the cattle herd has been widely anticipated, and the supply squeeze is now filtering through to every level of the beef market. Because beef carries outsized weight in the overall food index, its continued escalation “looms large” over the broader food price outlook.
The food price index is heavily influenced by how much weight each category carries in the overall basket of consumer food spending.
- Meat, poultry, and fish collectively hold a 10.8% share, behind only “other foods” at 12.8%, and just ahead of fruits and vegetables at 9.5%.
- Within this, meats account for 7%, with beef and veal alone representing 3.5%.
By comparison, fresh fruits and vegetables make up 7.9%, cereal and bakery products 8%, and nonalcoholic beverages 6.6%.
- With beef’s relative weight and its rapid price escalation, it disproportionately shapes the overall food inflation trajectory.
Other Notable Categories
- Eggs: USDA projects a 24.8% increase in 2025, followed by an 11.1% decline in 2026. Farm-level egg prices already dropped 22.8% from July to August 2025, offering relief signals.
- Other gains: Eggs, beef/veal, sugar/sweets, and nonalcoholic beverages are expected to grow faster than their 20-year averages in 2025.
World Farming Agriculture and Commodity news - Short update 12th October 2025
The Dutch Agriculture Ministry on Thursday issued a nationwide order to poultry farms to keep their birds inside and banned bird shows following the discovery of a case of bird flu on a chicken farm in the north of the country, reported Reuters. The outbreak in the northern Drenthe province, the first in the Netherlands since March, led to an order to cull around 71,000 chickens last week. The highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has killed or led to the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry globally in recent years, most of them laying hens, which sent egg prices rocketing. The disease can also spread to humans and other animals, raising fears of a new pandemic.
The world is falling far behind a global goal to reverse deforestation by 2030, with losses being largely driven by agricultural expansion and forest fires, Reuters reported, citing the 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment.The report said the world permanently lost 8.1 million hectares (20 million acres) of forest, an area about the size of England, in 2024 alone, putting the planet 63% behind the goal set by over 140 countries in the 2021 Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use.The Forest Declaration Assessment brings together research organizations, think tanks, non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups, and the report was coordinated by advisory company Climate Focus.Fires were the leading cause of forest loss, accounting for 6.73 million of those hectares around the world, with the Amazon rainforest hit particularly hard, releasing nearly 800 million metric tons of CO2 from fires in 2024."Major fire years used to be outliers, but now they're the norm. And these fires are largely human-made," said Erin Matson, lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment. "They're linked to land clearing, to climate change-induced drought, and to limited law enforcement."Earlier reports also found Amazon fires led to unprecedented forest loss, with Brazil leading tropical forest loss and Bolivia's forest loss surging by 200% in 2024.This year's global forest assessment also found that on average, 86% of annual global deforestation over the last decade was caused by permanent agriculture. It also listed gold and coal mining as growing sources of deforestation.
"Demand for commodities like soy, beef, timber, coal, and metals keeps rising, but the tragedy is we don't actually need to destroy forests to meet that demand," Matson said, adding over $400 billion in agricultural subsidies are helping drive deforestation."The incentives are completely backwards," she said, noting international public finance for forest protection and restoration averaged just $5.9 billion a year. The report estimates that $117 billion to $299 billion in financing is needed to reach the 2030 goals.With the COP30, the United Nations climate change conference, set to start in Brazil in November, Matson points to the country's proposed Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which aims to raise $125 billion in funding for long-term forest finance as a way to help stem forest loss.
The fund, which would be financed by governments and private investors, could disperse $3.4 billion a year with 20% going to indigenous and local communities."Looking toward COP30 in Belem, a successful launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, TFFF, could start to channel long-term reliable finance to keeping forests standing," Matson said. "So looking at the global picture of deforestation, it is dark, but we may be in the darkness before the dawn."
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