Specifically, compared to the May estimate, USDA analysts have slightly raised their forecast for global wheat production in the 2026/27 marketing year—by 1 million tons—to 820.06 million tons. This is nearly 20 million tons above the five-year average (801.20 million tons), but remains 24.3 million tons below the record harvest of the previous season.
“The breakdown of adjustments by country in the USDA’s June report is more revealing than the global figure,” says agricultural marketing expert Yuri Riza. “The production forecast for Russia has been increased by only 2 million tons, to 88 million, which remains below private analysts’ estimates (91.5 million tons according to IKAR and 90.3 million tons according to SovEcon). This leaves open the possibility of a further increase in the grain production forecast for this country. In contrast, production in Australia was reduced by 2 million tons, to 28 million tons, bringing the USDA forecast closer to the more pessimistic estimate by the ABARES agency. For Ukraine, the adjustment is modest—an increase of 0.5 million tons, to 23.5 million tons. For the U.S., the forecast has been lowered by 0.48 million tons, to 42.01 million tons. The most significant adjustment occurred in the case of Turkey, where the production forecast increased by 1.5 million tons to a record level of 22.5 million tons.
According to the expert, what is important for a commercial assessment is that the forecast for an increase in global supply is accompanied by a rise in global consumption of 1.36 million tons. As a result, global ending wheat stocks remained virtually unchanged, increasing by only 0.38 million tons. In other words, the production surplus was almost entirely absorbed by demand, and the ratio between stocks and consumption did not change significantly.
The forecast for global wheat exports rose to 211.95 million tons, and ending stocks to 275.42 million tons.
