World: Barley crop forecast for 2025 sees an increase once again

World barley crop'25 forecast has once again seen an increase, rising by 0.8 mln tonnes to a total of 152.5 mln tonnes. This increase is driven by stronger outputs from Argentina (+0.3 mln tonnes) and Australia (+0.5 mln tonnes), as the southern hemisphere surpasses earlier forecasts, RMI Analytics said in their early December report.

Looking at the Major Six regions’ performance (Argentina, Australia, Canada, EU-27 + UK, Ukraine, and Russia), the production at 117.5 mln tonnes is a sizeable +11.5 mln tonnes above the crop’24 final result. This provides considerable comfort to both malting barley demand, along ample supply to fulfil the on-going strong feed barley demand environment.

While farmers enjoy the strong off-take of feed barley, this creates more concern regarding farmers’ crop’26 planting decisions, the analysts said.

A low premium for malting barley, combined with a slow off-take in the malting barley shipments and a robust demand for feed barley, may lead farmers to favour higher-yielding feed varieties. This presents a global challenge for malting barley; in crop’25, significant high-quality barley will enter feed channels. Malting barley acreage in crop’26 is undoubtedly to decline, even if the overall barley area remains constant.