Speakers at Dubai’s World Grain and Pulses Forum 2026 described a well-supplied 2025/26 market with recovering trade, but warned that ample supply will intensify competition—shifting the real battle to execution amid freight and route risk, policy shocks and volatile demand.

World Grain and Pulses Forum 2026 was held in Dubai on 26–28 January, bringing together participants from across the grains, pulses and oilseeds supply chain to discuss market outlooks, trade flows, logistics and risk management. Organised by the Russian Grain Exporters and Producers Union, the event drew more than 1,100 delegates from over 50 countries, including traders, exporters, processors, logistics firms and financial and service providers.

The programme was structured to mirror the market’s current fault lines. Day one opened with an Oils & Oilseeds Trade Summit, followed by a “Zero Day” block focused on Black Sea pricing dynamics and the logistics component of grain trade—signalling that freight, routes and execution risk remain central to competitiveness. The main forum day then shifted to food security and technology, global grain market outlook, exchange-traded instruments and risk management, and finally pulses strategies, bringing public-sector voices and commercial players around the same set of questions: how supply and demand are evolving, how risk is being priced, and what strategies can sustain trade flows in a more complex environment.

RUSSIA’S GRAIN EXPORT ROADMAP

In the keynote address, Russian Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut emphasised Russia’s role in global grain and oilseed supply and framed exports as part of a broader food-security agenda. Lut said Russia exported 50 million tonnes of grain in 2025, including 41 million tonnes of wheat, with 78% of wheat exports going to Africa and the Middle East. She also highlighted pulses as a fast-growing segment, citing a record 8 million-tonne pulses harvest in 2025 and exports of about 3 million tonnes.

Looking ahead, Lut projected grain exports of 55 million tonnes in 2026 on the back of an expected harvest of around 140 million tonnes. Under the national grain complex development strategy, she said production is targeted to reach 170 million tonnes by 2030, with exports potentially rising to 80 million tonnes. Lut argued that the next stage should move beyond trade flows toward joint work in science, technology, education and infrastructure to raise efficiency and reduce costs, while reiterating that Russia aims to remain a reliable supplier despite market and geopolitical disruptions.

TÜRKİYE’S BALANCE SHEET

In the plenary session on technology and food security, Ahmet Güldal, Director General of the Turkish Grain Board (TMO), said global grain supply has expanded sharply over the past two decades, but warned that the system remains structurally fragile as climate shocks, geopolitical risk and logistics disruption become “the new normal.” He noted that global grain output, which stood at around 2 billion tonnes in 2007–08, is projected to exceed 3 billion tonnes for the first time in 2025/26.

Turning to Türkiye, Güldal said total grain production exceeded 42 million tonnes in 2023 and that, under normal conditions, the country can cover domestic consumption in wheat and barley. However, he said climate-driven yield losses over the past two seasons have increased the need for imports. He said TMO’s priority is to safeguard supply security and market stability by building stocks in a prudent, forward-looking manner. Güldal also pointed to Türkiye’s inward processing regime, under which imported wheat and corn are converted into value-added products exported to more than 160 countries, noting Türkiye’s position as the world’s top flour exporter and second-largest pasta exporter. He added that licensed warehousing capacity has surpassed 14 million tonnes, strengthening trade flows and lowering logistics costs.

GRAIN BUFFERS LOOK ‘COMFORTABLE,’ BUT SHOCK RISKS PERSIST

Oleg Kobyakov, director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, said global grain markets are entering 2025/26 with “comfortable” supply buffers, but warned that food-security risks are being driven less by absolute availability than by conflict, climate shocks and economic stress that disrupt imports and affordability. He said the world population rose from 8.1 billion in 2023 to 8.2 billion in 2024, while the number of undernourished people fell from 730 million to 673 million, with FAO projecting 512 million undernourished by 2030.

Kobyakov highlighted the economic cost of shocks, citing FAO estimates that disasters generated about USD 3.26 trillion in agricultural economic losses over 1991–2023—around USD 99 billion per year on average—with cereals suffering the largest volume losses at 4.6 billion tonnes. He argued that digital transformation can shift systems from reactive crisis response to proactive risk prevention, but requires an enabling environment.

On the balance sheet, he said FAO’s outlook puts global cereal production at a record 3,003 million tonnes in 2025/26, while global utilisation is forecast at 2,928 million tonnes, up 59.2 million tonnes (2.1%) year on year. Global closing cereal stocks are projected at 925.5 million tonnes in 2026, with a stocks-to-use ratio of 29.8% and “buffer” cover of 4.6 months of global consumption; exporters’ stocks-to-disappearance is forecast at 22.3%, the highest level since the early 1990s. He added that global cereal trade in 2025/26 is forecast at 500.6 million tonnes, up 15.9 million tonnes (3.3%) from 2024/25, with wheat driving the rebound as Pakistan and Türkiye resume purchases amid stable prices and ample supplies.

TECH-LED RESILIENCE ACROSS THE GRAIN VALUE CHAIN

Ali Rashid Ali Alghafri, Director at Oman’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, argued that food security is increasingly “engineered” through technology rather than secured by production alone, saying the critical battleground has shifted to “silos, labs and data centres” as much as farms. He stressed that, in a market where grains supply more than 50% of global calories and global grain trade exceeds 2.8 billion tonnes a year, import-dependent countries face higher supply risk and need technology-led resilience built into the entire value chain—from ports and storage to testing, traceability and logistics integration.

AlGhafri said reducing losses is one of the fastest routes to stronger food security, citing estimates that up to 30% of food is lost globally and that technology-enabled supply chains can cut post-harvest losses by 15–25%. He also highlighted Oman Flour Mills as an example of measurable gains from automation and energy and water efficiency, describing technology as a tool that can deliver both resilience and operational performance.

MOROCCO’S MILLING INDUSTRY

Bilal Hajjouji, Director General of Morocco’s interprofessional cereals and pulses agency ONICL, described Morocco’s milling industry as a “central link” in national food security—tasked not only with supplying flour but also stabilising markets, securing strategic stocks and supporting social and food stability. He said grains account for around 75% of Morocco’s arable land and roughly 20% of agricultural GDP, while the country’s national production potential is estimated at about 10 million tonnes, compared with average annual imports exceeding 9 million tonnes. Against that backdrop, Hajjouji characterised milling as a strategic asset, noting Morocco has 137 active industrial milling units with annual grinding capacity of 10.5 million tonnes and that soft wheat represents around 85% of activity. He said the sector’s competitiveness agenda is increasingly tied to advanced milling, industrial digitalisation and sustainability—highlighting MES/ERP integration, IoT sensors and automation for real-time control and end-to-end traceability, alongside energy-efficiency and food-safety investments.

GLOBAL WHEAT TRADE SET TO REBOUND

In the session on opportunities and challenges for the global grain market, Igor Pavenskiy, Head of Rusagrotrans Marketing Division, said the 2025/26 wheat season is shaping up as a more active trade year, with global wheat trade (July–June) projected at 207.1 million tonnes, up from 186.9 million a year earlier—an increase of 20.2 million tonnes. He attributed the expansion to ample supply across key exporting origins, arguing that none of the leading producers is expected to see a drop in gross production, supported by large crops in Canada, Argentina and Kazakhstan, the second-highest crop in the EU and the third-highest in Australia.

On exports, Pavenskiy projected a broad-based expansion led by the EU (+5.6 mmt) and Argentina (+5.6 mmt), followed by Australia (+5.2 mmt), Russia (+3.4 mmt), the U.S. (+1.8 mmt) and Canada (+0.8 mmt). He said the acceleration is already visible in the first half of the marketing year: in July–December 2025/26, the seven major exporters shipped 92.4 million tonnes, 6% higher year-on-year. He said the strongest gains came from the Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere suppliers—U.S. exports up 19%, Canada up 5%, Australia up 54%, and Argentina more than doubling—while Russia’s export pace was 10% lower, reflecting a smaller crop in southern regions and heavier competition in global tenders. Over the same window, the EU ran 3% behind last year’s pace and Ukraine exported 20% less.

Pavenskiy also pointed to demand-side shifts reshaping flows into the Middle East and North Africa. He said Türkiye’s imports are expected to recover to 7.5 million tonnes after a suspension in 2024/25, while China is seen partly restoring buying to 5 million tonnes. He added that tighter domestic crops could lift Iran’s imports to 2 million tonnes (from 1.3 million) and Pakistan’s to 0.5 million tonnes (from zero), with the main 12 importers together accounting for an increase of 12.6 million tonnes in import demand.

On Russia, Pavenskiy put the country’s 2025/26 grains crop at 142.5 million tonnes, including wheat at 91.4 mmt, barley 19.7 mmt, corn 15.8 mmt and pulses 7.6 mmt. He estimated Russia’s wheat exports in July 2025–January 2026 at 29.6 mmt, below the 32.2 mmt record seen in 2024 for the same period, while barley exports reached 4.37 mmt and corn 3.08 mmt. He put total Russian grain and pulses exports for 2025/26 at 58.85 mmt, up from 53.38 mmt a year earlier.

RUSSIA’S LOGISTICS REBALANCE

A key logistics takeaway, Pavenskiy argued, is that Russia’s export geography is changing how grain moves to ports. Since September 2025, he said Russia has posted record monthly rail export volumes, bringing July–January rail exports to 14.8 mmt (near the 2023/24 record of 15.1 mmt), with wheat accounting for 86% (12.7 mmt). For the full 2025/26 season, he forecast rail exports at 21.8 mmt versus 15.85 mmt in 2024/25, and said rail’s share of total grain exports is set to reach a record 40%, up from 30–35% in recent seasons, driven by stronger flows from the Volga, Central and Siberian regions and a decline in shipments from the South.

Looking further ahead, Pavenskiy said Russia’s wheat harvested area in 2026/27 is expected to remain near a seven-year low, broadly in line with 2025/26, at 26.8 million hectares, with winter wheat at 15.9 million hectares (15.8 million last year) and spring wheat at 10.85 million hectares. He noted that the last time Russia operated with similarly low wheat area was 2018/19, when the crop totalled 72.1 million tonnes, compared with 91.4 million tonnes in 2025/26 from almost the same area. He added that autumn and early-winter weather has been favourable for winter wheat so far, supporting yield prospects, and he forecast Russia’s 2026/27 wheat production at 89–94 million tonnes, close to 2025/26, assuming no extreme weather late in winter or during spring 2026.

RUSSIA’S LAND ADVANTAGE

Dmitrii Volobuev, Deputy Director at Petrokhleb-Kuban, argued that Russia’s export potential is expanding as climate change and land constraints reshape global supply. He said Russia’s agricultural land accounts for 22% of its total land area and that the country could add around 5 million hectares of farmland over the next three to five years, with up to 30 million hectares potentially brought into use over the next 20 years—an expansion he said could raise Russia’s grain harvest by 10 to 40 million tonnes. Volobuev warned that agricultural land availability is projected to decline in multiple regions under climate-driven “base” and “stress” scenarios and said this trend could shift competitiveness and reliability toward higher-latitude suppliers. He also noted that Russia already exports about 20% of the world’s wheat supply, and said sustaining and expanding exports will depend on diversifying logistics and trade corridors, including the International North–South Corridor.

BLACK SEA, TÜRKİYE AND PRICE FORMATION

Eren Gunhan Ulusoy, Chairman of IAOM Eurasia and Chairman of the Board of Ulusoy Flour, described the Black Sea basin as the strategic focal point of global grain markets because it sits at the intersection of price formation, trade flows, logistics fragility and geopolitics. He said the region accounts for roughly 25% of world grain exports and positioned Türkiye as one of the major buyers in this ecosystem.

For 2025/26, Ulusoy said Türkiye’s wheat imports are expected to approach 7 million tonnes as production falls to around 16 million tonnes, but argued that the country’s institutional and physical infrastructure can absorb that volume without destabilising domestic consumption, flour production or price stability. He cited a capacity base of 4.5 million tonnes of TMO storage, 14.5 million tonnes of licensed warehousing, 6.25 million tonnes of port bonded warehouse capacity, and total flour production capacity of 28 million tonnes across 500 facilities. Looking ahead to 2026/27, he said the season started with weak soil moisture but conditions improved with January rains and heavy snowfall, supporting prospects if spring precipitation remains favourable.

MACRO DRIVERS SUPPORT GRAIN PRICES

David Whitcomb, Head of Research at Peak Trading Research, said non-fundamental signals tend to be supportive for grain prices early in the calendar year, particularly when macro and geopolitical stress increases demand for “real assets.” He said rising geopolitical risks can attract incremental flows into grain markets and argued that a weaker U.S. dollar in 2026 and higher oil prices would add support for wheat. Whitcomb also warned that this is a seasonally risky period when volatility is typically elevated, and that in such conditions volatility often translates into higher prices rather than lower ones.

EGYPT'S GRAIN IMPORT TRANSFORMATION

Eng. Ahmed ElSebaie, General Manager of Egypt’s Egyptian Swiss Group for Pasta, Milling and Concentrates, described wheat as the most politically and socially sensitive commodity in Egypt’s food-security equation. He noted that Russia supplied about 59% of Egypt’s wheat imports in 2025 and argued that continued coordination with Russian exporters is critical to supply stability and more balanced pricing amid geopolitical strain and logistics volatility. He also pointed to efforts to register Russian suppliers on Egypt’s unified procurement platform as a constructive step toward stronger organisation and transparency in strategic imports.

ElSebaie added that Egypt’s wheat imports eased to around 13.1 million tonnes, reflecting lower state buying and higher domestic procurement, while feed and industrial demand pushed other import lines sharply higher. Corn imports climbed to a record above 11.5 million tonnes in 2025, alongside a clear shift in sourcing toward Brazil and Argentina, and soybean imports continued to hit new highs as crushing capacity and industrial consumption expanded. He said the trend points to a structural change in the composition and geography of Egypt’s grain imports, increasing concentration risk and reinforcing the need for stronger risk-management tools, supply diversification and parallel support for domestic production where feasible.

GRAIN SHIPPING DYNAMICS

Ishan Bhanu, Lead Agriculture Commodities Analyst at Kpler, said grain freight and vessel supply dynamics are set to remain market-moving in 2026, with trade flows increasingly shaped by origin competitiveness, port performance and route risk rather than just outright commodity prices. He said South America’s export dominance is expected to continue on the back of large crops, improved port fluidity and price competitiveness, arguing that lower congestion at key load zones effectively adds capacity by shortening waiting times and improving turnaround.

Bhanu also said Argentina’s wheat is poised to travel farther and more widely, challenging incumbent suppliers and putting pressure on Europe’s export position, as incremental Argentine supply displaces Black Sea and Australian wheat in key destinations and changes shipping demand patterns. 

On geopolitics, he said the Red Sea crisis was a boon for Black Sea exporters, adding that an unravelling of the crisis is unlikely to materially change grain trade patterns, but would bring competition back from Western Europe. He also said a return to Red Sea normalcy would increase vessel supply, noting that overall dry bulk ton-miles rose because of the conflict even though core grain flows were not affected.

FROM SEASONAL SWINGS TO ‘NON-SEASONAL’ VOLATILITY

In the panel on exchange-trade instruments and risk management, Dr. Arun Raste, Managing Director and CEO of India’s National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), argued that grain markets are shifting from seasonal swings to “non-seasonal” volatility, making formal price discovery and risk-management mechanisms more important—particularly for import-dependent regions such as the Gulf. He said around $1.5 trillion in annual agricultural trade is exposed to 40–60% price volatility and that emerging markets—home to more than 850 million smallholder farmers producing about half of global supply—often lack the infrastructure needed to set transparent prices and manage risk.

Calling traditional post-harvest price discovery “outdated,” he said information gaps and fragmented supply chains allow intermediaries to capture 30–40% of value and leave farmers, processors and traders more exposed to sudden price moves. He argued that exchange-traded markets backed by harmonised quality standards, warehousing networks and central clearing can reduce counterparty risk and strengthen market confidence. Raste added that governments can accelerate adoption by aligning regional standards, recognising cross-border contracts and creating incentives for hedging activity, warning that unpredictable policy shifts tend to amplify volatility and weaken confidence.