WHEAT 

• Wheat prices slowing climbing 

The London November 2025 wheat futures hit a contract low of £176.10 last Wednesday before climbing to a high of £183 the week after, a price we haven’t seen since May.  

London’s May 2026 contract hit a contract low of £186.50 last Wednesday before climbing to a high of £193 on Wednesday 18th June. The November to May 2026 carry has been trading between £10-11 per tonne over the past week. Last year the November to May carry grew to over £15 per tonne at times. 

MATIF December 2025 wheat futures hit a low of €208.25 on 12th May before making gains to a weekly high of €214.75 on Wednesday 18th June. A key watch for the market is the MATIF September-May 2026 carry which is currently at €23 which is significant. 

Short fund covering is thought to play a part in the past week’s wheat market gains.  

• Trade imports and exports down on the year  

The most notable trades over the past week were Algeria and Jordan, both reportedly buying Black Sea origin milling wheat. Algeria purchased around 560,000 tonnes for August delivery at $244.50 and Jordan purchased 60,000 tonnes for September delivery at $254.90.  

EU exports and imports are down year on year, with exports forecast to be down 33% at 21 million tonnes and imports down 19% at 9.5 million tonnes by the end of June. At this point in mid-June, Romania makes up around 25% of European wheat exports so far this season with 5.38 million tonnes, closely followed by the Baltics with 5.11 million tonnes, Germany with 2.6 million tonnes and Bulgaria with 2.16 million tonnes.  

Chinese wheat imports are way off the pace compared to last year. Since August 2025, monthly imports have been below both 2022-23 and 2023-24 season levels, with only around 550,000 tonnes imported in May 2025 compared to around 1.85 million tonnes in May 2024. Wheat plantings in Western Australia are forecast to drop to their lowest level since the 2022-23 season, with an expected production of just circa 10 million tonnes, down from just over 14 million tonnes in the 2022-23 season.              

• Hot weather forecast over the next week  

The UK and France are currently facing hot and dry temperatures, with both set to experience up to 30° Celsius. Temperatures in Canada look more reasonable, with a wetter forecast. Similarly, Russia and eastern parts of Ukraine are cooler than usual with light rain forecast. Both Western and Eastern Australia has rain forecast but Argentina is very dry for now.  

Traders will be keeping a keen eye on European weather as we approach harvest. Prolonged and excessive heat can be very damaging for wheat crops, more damaging than cold and wet weather.     

BARLEY 

Old crop feed barley continues to come to the market as growers look to clear sheds ahead of harvest, with values trading at a discount to old crop, there is no incentive to hold tonnage. Some of the crop being sold as feed is malting barley that has no demand before harvest. 

New crop feed barley is trading at a £15-17 per tonne discount to feed wheat, a difference that is not wide enough for a significant inclusion of feed barley in domestic rations, and which makes feed barley look relatively expensive compared to feed wheat. Harvest values look likely to be under pressure as UK feed barley is not competitive on the export market. 

The EU malting barley market has had a quiet week, but a general weakening of values as demand for both brewing and distilling malt continues to struggle. The European market will have a significantly higher carry in stock of malting barley than normal, and early reports of French winter malting barley yields and quality in the Southwest are encouraging, all bearish factors for malting barley values. Despite this, uncertainty about both yields and quality here and across the continent as a result of the dry weather earlier in the season continues to be an area of focus. 

OILSEEDS  

Oilseeds markets have been buoyant in the last week as significant global political events have taken control.  

Firstly, crude oil markets spiked due to the conflict between Israel and Iran. This filtered through to vegetable oils and in turn oilseeds. In addition, there was some positive news for US farmers and processors as it was indicated that a higher inclusion of plant-based feedstock would be mandated in US biofuels, and that imported feedstocks would not be attributed with the same levels of environmental credits as home-grown product. This news boosted the soybean and soybean oil markets which, being the biggest global oilseed crop, helps drive prices of other oilseeds including rapeseed which is currently trading at season highs of around £430 delivered to UK crush for November ‘25. The UK rapeseed crop is faring well as a whole, with many feeling much more optimistic about their crop versus the previous two marketing years.  

More recently, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) came out with its latest planting survey which suggested an area of 236,000 hectares. On a decent yield this would put the crop at around 750,000 tonnes - a decrease on last year’s crop but better than many were expecting earlier in the growing season.   

FERTILISER 

• Urea/AN/NS 

It’s been a week of turmoil in the global urea markets – proof of how quickly events can turn markets upside down in an instant. 

With escalating tensions in the Middle East at the end of last week, we saw all UK solid fertiliser suppliers withdraw suddenly from the market as a precaution.  The Middle East exports over 30% of global urea and is a large producer of gas and ammonia, so this has had a big impact on the fertiliser markets.  The most concerning cause is that Iran has called a halt to ammonia-urea production in the country with the recent attacks between Iran and Israel. The latter has turned off some of its gas supplies over safety fears and this coupled with an attack on a Russian nitrogen factory by Ukraine has led this facility to cease production.  

As well as this, concerns that the US may get involved in the Middle East issues have put further pressure on prices. Markets have been worried further by Egyptian gas supply issues too, as Israel supplies Egypt with gas which has reduced production in the country with no fixed date as to when supplies will resume. This means that no offers are coming out of Egypt at this time, which is the main supplier of urea to the UK. 

All of this leans towards a tightness and an increase in values in the global urea markets for the foreseeable. Whilst gas supplies in Egypt are halted, several factories have decided to undertake maintenance during this period of uncertainty.  

Finally, in the background the latest Indian tender results were announced, with offers falling short of the targeted 1.5 mt with only around 220,000 tonnes offered. With very little Middle East product and a lack of Chinese product being offered, this indicates a further Indian tender in due course.  

As well as urea, Iran is also a major producer of ammonia which supplies a lot of products to India. With Iranian factories halting production, this has caused ammonia values to rise globally too. There is approximately 1mt of ammonia production offline today in a market that is around 18 million tonnes a year. In the UK at time of writing, there are very little - if any - urea values being offered. 

In the nitrates market, the release of UK AN prices the previous week saw a good uptake of orders from farm mainly due to the competitive pricing. However, these were withdrawn off the first offer and a fresh offer was released for October/November delivery at a small premium. This was subsequently withdrawn last week on the back of the Middle East tensions as a precaution.   

Nitrogen prices in the UK are gradually being offered back into the market, though at a premium to last week’s values.  Imported AN offers are distinctly lacking due to the producers not keen on competing with the recent prices for UK AN and the uncertainty in the markets currently. 

Similar to the urea and nitrates market, values of NS grades have increased this week on the back of all the above events, with some manufacturers having limited supply. 

• UAN 

Considering the current geopolitical conditions detailed above, UK suppliers of UAN are reviewing their stocks and shipping programmes.  

As anticipated with the competitive values offered to growers in the last 7-10 days, significant volumes have been covered on farm and pricing on tonnage for movement in the summer window has been withdrawn from the marketplace.  

The limited tonnage available for autumn delivery into on-farm storage is subject to review by the UAN suppliers. Growers are advised to discuss their N, NS and NPK requirements with their Frontier contact at their earliest opportunity.  

• Straights/PKs 

Phosphate prices remain firm once again due to the lack of availability and are expected to stay as such for the immediate future, so it’s worth considering purchasing sooner rather than later for any oilseed rape requirements. Once current supplies of DAP are sold in the UK replacement values are cited at much higher than current levels, which has the potential to cause suppliers to hold off replenishing stocks and we could see a lack of product available for starter fertilisers or, if there is product, it will be at a much higher price.   

Alternatives to DAP are Oilseed Start which has the added bonus of sulphur and boron to aid the growing crop – please speak to a Frontier representative for prices.   

Potash prices also remain firm due to lack of availability and high demand globally. Please consider Polysulphate to provide your crop sulphur requirements if any forms of straight nitrogen fertiliser have already been purchased.

Please speak to your local Frontier contact or email us at info@frontierag.co.uk  for more information or advice related to any of the topics and services mentioned in this report. 

To be notified each time this report is published in the future, you can also subscribe to ensure you always have the latest market insights - just complete the form below.