Global market: Grains vs oilseeds crops in 2025

Published Nov 26, 2024

Tridge summary

AHDB has released its Early Bird Survey, predicting a rise in the UK wheat area and a fall in rapeseed area, potentially reducing the oilseed rape area to its lowest in the UK for 42 years. The price ratio between grains and oilseeds is a key factor in farming decisions. In the US, the ratio of soybean to maize prices has rebounded to 2.18 for the 2025 crop, indicating a preference for corn. In the EU, the ratio of winter rapeseed to milling wheat has peaked at 2.19 for the 2025 crop, favoring rapeseed, but speculators' net long position in Chicago maize and short position in soybeans have led to a preference for grains in the US and UK domestic markets.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

Sign up to receive the Weekly Market Report and Grain Market Daily from AHDB. Last Thursday, AHDB published its Early Bird Survey. The survey provisionally projects the UK wheat area to rise, but the rapeseed area to fall, provisionally projecting a 17% fall in planted area in 2025. If confirmed, this would reduce the oilseed rape area to its lowest area in the UK for 42 years. The eternal dilemma for farmers around the world is whether it is better to sow grains or oilseeds, many things need to be analysed to draw final conclusions. We are now focusing on analysing the price ratio. In the US, one of the most popular factors in deciding between soyabean and maize is the price ratio. Typically, if the ratio is higher than 2.5 (soyabeans prices 2.5 times higher than maize prices) it stimulates farmers to plant more soyabean. On the other hand, a ratio lower than 2.5 indicates that there will be a higher corn acreage in the US. From 15 December 2023 to 25 November 2024, we could see ...

Source: Ahdb