2026 agrifood commodities outlook: how will Trump chaos impact on trade?

Price shocks in cocoa, beef and coffee made the headlines in 2025, alongside Trump tariff turmoil. However, it was a surprisingly stable year for global agrifood commodities overall.

The World Bank’s Food Commodity Price Index fell by about 6% year on year in 2025 as global agrifood supply largely rebalanced or even grew, following years of volatility driven by the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine.

Analysts are predicting more of the same in 2026. Commodity-focused Dutch banks ING and Rabobank both forecast a generally ‘bearish’ outlook for many – though not all – key agrifood categories, characterised by falling prices and improved supply.

Current production patterns for the first half of 2026 at least, are for “generally high-level harvests, all of which provides a more subdued than not, context for the trajectory of agricultural prices”, agrees Shore Capital, which forecasts the UK food system, as in 2025, should not “look to soft commodity prices as a notable source of future price inflation”.

But scratch the surface and volatility is never far away – especially in the increasingly fraught gepolitical sphere.

So, what will all this mean for commodity markets and food and drink prices?

Trump chaos continues

President Donald Trump’s move on Venezuela last weekend – in which US forces seized president Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York on alleged narcoterrorism charges – sent shockwaves around the world. And with the US president also making ever-louder noises about annexing Greenland, 2026 looks set to be another year of geopolitical risk and related market uncertainty.

This week, Trump again insisted the US “needs” the Danish semi-autonomous territory for security reasons and didn’t rule out military action.

Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen responded by saying any attack could “be the end of NATO”. Such a turn of events could also conceivably send US relations with the EU and even the UK into a death spiral, and reopen fears of even more punitive tariff actions, or worse, by Washington.

In response, Britain and five other major European allies laid down a marker of their own on Tuesday by expressing support for Denmark in a statement stressing “Greenland belongs to its people, and only Denmark and Greenland can decide on matters concerning their relations”. But at the time of writing, Trump and his team showed no sign of softening what looks like am increasingly hostile and imperialist US position.

As for Venezuela, ING head of commodities strategy Warren Patterson says the US intervention and Trump’s plans to “run” the country “leaves only further supply uncertainty for the oil market – something it has faced plenty of over the past year”.

Read more:

• Campaigners up in arms as soy traders leave deforestation moratorium

• EU backslides further on Deforestation Regulation, with delay to 2027

• Supermarkets ‘playing with fire’ as climate action lags, WWF warns

On the plus side, he suggests America’s actions do increase the likelihood of it ultimately lifting its sanctions on Venezuelan oil, which could lead to a “large recovery in production”, due to the nation’s status as the home of the planet’s biggest oil reserves, and ultimately drive oil prices down.

But “any significant increase would likely take several years”, he warns, given the deterioration in the country’s oil infrastructure, despite Trump’s (much-contested) claims US oil companies could ramp up production in as little as 18 months.

On the wider energy front, Rabobank points to an expected decline in pricing in 2026, helped by an “easing” of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, with supply outpacing demand. However, this analysis could soon be overtaken by events, amid reports the US is considering further military action in an increasingly volatile Iran too.

Geopolitical risk

Even before the past week’s flashpoints, however, heightened global uncertainty means geopolitics is now the leading factor dictating trade flows, prices, and production decisions, says Rabobank in its 2026 Agri Commodity Outlook.

The days when traditional market forces such as supply and demand held sway are over, suggests Rabobank’s head of agri commodity markets research Carlos Mera.

Attempts at trade wars like Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April are “reshaping long-standing patterns of production and export, leading to a fragmented, policy-driven global food system”, he points out.

And farmers are being caught in the middle. Some producers will have benefited from “intensified agricultural support programs through direct payments and minimum price guarantees”, Rabobank’s report says, leaving producers in other countries that haven’t joined the “subsidy race” at a disadvantage.

This will have been supported by monetary easing by governments and a frontloading of exports ahead of tariff hikes, in a “tactical gambit to mitigate early shock”, it adds.

The targeted action by some countries may have initially muted trade tensions, but only for a limited time. Rabobank warns “these mitigating factors will fade and the negative effect of the tariffs and uncertainty are likely to surface in 2026”.

Regulatory muddle

Uncertainty also surrounds the regulatory picture for 2026.

Long-standing fears over the Amazon Soy Moratorium – which has restricted the sale of soy grown on deforested land in the rainforest since 2008 – came to a head this week.

Brazilian soy trade association Abiove, which counts agribusiness giants and major soybean purchasers including Cargill and ADM as members, confirmed speculation it would quit the pact. That has raised fears of a huge increase in deforestation in the Amazon biome – with estimates that deforestation in the region could increase by as much as 30% by 2045, according to modelling by Brazil’s Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).

An end to the moratorium could disrupt the EU/Mercosur trade agreement that is going through final negotiations, warned a report by London School of Economics academics in November. Potential boycotts of Brazilian soy by major protein buyers could also destabilise global trade flows, they suggested.

An end to the pact also clashes with the EU’s Deforestation regulation (EUDR), they pointed out, “potentially complicating compliance for Brazilian exporters and increasing scrutiny from European regulators”.

The retreat from global policies designed to tackle climate change – seen so clearly at November’s COP30 climate summit – is also demonstrated by the lack of progress on the EUDR.

Read more:

• Is the COP model broken?

• Confectionery giants potentially exposed to deforested Liberian cocoa, report claims

• A new ethical scheme on the block: trends in ethical trading 2025

Not only has it been watered down, but its rollout has been delayed for a second time until the end of 2026 for micro businesses and to June for larger traders following intense lobbying.

The move would “destabilise business preparedness, investor confidence and market predictability and squander hundreds of millions already committed to EUDR compliance and traceability systems”, warned NGO Mighty Earth last month.

Mera’s take on the importance of geopolitics is also evident in transport. ING suggests the recovery of the vital Red Sea/Suez Canal shipping route – effectively closed off since Yemen’s Houthi attacks started in late 2023 – is “not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’”.

Detours around the Cape of Good Hope for almost a third of global container traffic “lasted far longer than expected”, says ING senior economist Rico Luman. But he warns reopening the route could also trigger disruption via port congestion and delays, though it should also push down elevated shipping rates – that rose by as much as 250% at the height of the Houthi crisis – in the longer term.

Further disruption to shipping could additionally follow the US seizure of two ‘ghost fleet’ Russian-flagged oil tankers from Venezuela on Wednesday, prompting Russia to accuse the US of “piracy at sea”.

All this points to what Mera foresees as “continued trade disruptions, fluctuating regional prices, heavy government intervention, and a high probability of unexpected events”.

And that may mean international trade, commodities – and ultimately food prices and availability in UK supermarkets – could face yet more volatility in the year to come.

The outlook in 2026 for six key commodities

Sources: ING, Rabobank, Expana, Filippo Berio

Cocoa

Disease and drought have impacted cocoa prices since late 2023. Average prices were pushed up to a record $9,627/tonne [Raboresearch] in Q2 of 2025 – driving soaring inflation in retail.

Since then, they’ve settled at around the $6,000/tonne mark (albeit at higher than pre-2024 levels), amid a global rebound in production and “demand destruction”, says Rabobank.

Prices remain above the cost of production, incentivising new plantings, which should boost supply this year, it adds.

However, demand is expected to remain sluggish in the short term “as manufacturers “work through costly inventories by relying on higher retail prices, shrinkflation and skimplflation”.

Grains

The current 2025/26 season produced the first global wheat surplus in six years. A 25 million tonne jump in output was driven by good weather conditions globally, says Rabobank.

Expana and the Dutch bank both expect a slight wheat price recovery as the year progresses. Prices had fallen to around 530 US cents a bushel at the end of 2025, having hit a peak of 608 US cents in Q2 of 2024.

For corn, global production is up by 60 million tonnes year on year, says Expana, though traders are “cautious” on pricing due to high demand, which could push costs up.

Dairy

Milk production in most key global dairy-exporting regions is growing “strongly”, says Rabobank. Supply in the big seven exporting regions is projected to rise 1.8% in H1 of 2026, before slowing to 1.1% year on year in H2.

Strong farmgate prices have been a key driver of growth, with global averages hitting $4,165/tonne in Q2 of last year.

However, as seen in the UK in recent months, oversupply is weighing down farmgate prices, which could lead to a slowing or even a slump in production later this year, warns AHDB.