World: Global barley crop forecast unchanged at 150.5 mln tonnes

The forecast for the global barley crop'25 remains unchanged at 150.5 mln tonnes, while the global market awaits the completion of southern hemisphere crops, which generally remain on a good path. There are only minor upward changes for feed usage and a slight increase in global trade, RMI Analytics said in their early November report.

From the six major production regions (Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU+UK, Ukraine, Russia), production forecast is unchanged at 116.0 mln tonnes, a sizeable increase of 10 mln tonnes over last year, led by bigger crops in EU27+UK, Russia, Canada, and Australia.

Production outside the major six is expected to decline, while global feed barley demand increases slightly.

Despite the 10 mln tonnes supply increase over Crop’24, ending stocks are only up +4.9 mln tonnes in these six major markets.

There are no surprises in the supply situation for global barley, but we must wait for the completion of harvest in Australia and Argentina. A small frost event in Argentina reminds us that, ‘harvest is not over until the barley is in the bin’. Weak demand is showing up in extremely low malting barley premiums, which should be concerning for the retention of Crop’26 barley area, the analysts said.