Overview
- The World Bank forecasts global commodity prices will fall 7% in both 2025 and 2026, marking a fourth straight annual decline and the lowest levels in six years.
- Food prices are projected to drop 6.1% in 2025 and 0.3% in 2026, with soybean prices falling on record output and trade tensions before stabilizing over the next two years.
- Brent crude is expected to average $68 per barrel in 2025 and $60 in 2026 as a growing oil surplus and slower demand drive a broad energy-price decline.
- Fertilizer costs are seen rising 21% in 2025 on higher inputs and trade curbs, squeezing farm margins despite cheaper crop benchmarks.
- A likely La Niña late in 2025 or early 2026 could bring hotter, drier conditions to Argentina, southern Brazil and the U.S. Gulf Coast, threatening maize, wheat and soybean yields and potentially lifting prices above the baseline outlook.