Paris | Reuters — Consultancy Expana lowered its forecast for European Union soft wheat exports in the 2025/26 season for a fifth consecutive month after reducing projected wheat and barley shipments to the Middle East due to the war in the region, it said on Thursday.
In a monthly report, the consultancy put EU soft wheat exports at 27.1 million metric tons, down from 27.6 million last month – which would still exceed the 2024/25 low level, when a poor harvest hampered French shipments.
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“To reflect the immediate impact of the war in the Middle East, we are initially revising down our forecasts for European wheat and barley exports to countries in the region,” it said in the report.
The consultancy’s cuts in EU export forecasts to the region were for 250,000 tons of soft wheat and 100,000 tons of barley, Benoit Fayaud, senior grain analyst at Expana, said separately.
At a global level, it revised soft wheat imports to the Middle East in 2025/26 by 1.6 million tons, corn imports by 1.7 million tons and barley imports by 500,000 tons.
Trade flows during the first part of the campaign were very dynamic and two months of slowdown would ultimately have only a moderate impact on overall volumes for the current marketing year, Expana said in its report.
“If the conflict were to last longer, or if, for example, energy prices were to remain permanently higher, and consequently cereal prices would follow, then we would be forced to further reduce our demand estimate, not only in the Middle East, but also globally,” Fayaud said.
For 2026/27, the consultancy raised its forecast for the bloc’s soft wheat crop to 128.6 million tons, up from 128.3 million last month, and increased its barley outlook to 52.3 million tons from 52.2 million last month.
By contrast, Expana cut its 2026 maize production forecast in the bloc to 57.9 million tons, down from 58.3 million last month, citing a downward revision for France.
— Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide
