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The EU has delayed the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) to 30 December 2026, opening a window to simplify rules and address implementation challenges.

Volatility is now a defining feature of grain markets, but margin damage is still more often caused by organisational and behavioural failures than by price moves themselves.

AI has dominated industry talk—but milling needs prediction, not hype. Real value comes only when AI is built on automation, a strong OT network, one validated PLC-based data source, and fully automated clean data—so mills can anticipate failures, quality drift, energy use, and bottlenecks before they hit throughput.

The global food system stands at a crossroads. As demand for sustainable protein soars, pulses—beans, chickpeas, lentils, and peas—emerge as modern solutions to humanity’s most pressing nutritional challenges. Yet the most compelling chapter in this transformation is unfolding across a region uniquely positioned to capture its future: the Middle East.

In a world of “calm” wheat prices but persistent structural risks, leading millers can no longer rely on price alone. At Global Grain Geneva, Scott Wellcome and Fabien Varagnac explained why strict risk discipline, performance-driven wheat procurement and the digital tools are now essential to protecting flour margins and staying competitive.

Record Black Sea crops, slower-than-expected exports, Egypt’s shifting procurement model and Ukraine’s pivot away from Spain are setting a new pattern for wheat flows in 2025/26.

Global Grain Geneva 2025 revealed that even as record harvests and ample stocks suggest a “comfortable” balance, the real battle for grain is being fought on other boards: geopolitics, finance and technology.

In a region where farming is a battle against drought, heat, and scarcity, innovation has become the only path to survival. From gene editing to biologicals and AI-driven agriculture, technology is redefining how the Middle East and North Africa grow food—and how the milling industry secures its future.

In a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and digital (VUCAD) world, the traders who can speak both the language of commodities and the language of data , who understand the mechanics of financing as well as the geopolitics of governments — from fragile contexts like Syria’s re-entry into SWIFT, to sudden laws and export bans, to tariff and trade war shocks from the U.S., to forward-looking hubs like the UAE — will not just adapt to the future, they will shape it.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s wheat sector is expanding rapidly, driven by demographics, urbanization, and changing consumption patterns. Imports are increasing steadily, supply routes are shifting, and the milling sector is consolidating around a handful of strong, well-capitalized players.

In a world grappling with climate change, supply chain disruptions, and mounting food insecurity, ancient grains—once sidelined by modern agriculture—are re-emerging as powerful tools for building sustainable, self-reliant food systems.

With freight, FX and policy still in flux, importer Nouran Ezzeldin sets out a practical playbook for keeping grain moving into Egypt and North Africa.