Situation in the Barley Market: Demand, Shortage, and Prices in 2025

The global barley market continues to face a trend of decreasing sown areas: over the past six seasons, this figure has decreased by 15%. A significant reduction in barley acreage during this period has been recorded in countries such as Iraq, Morocco, Russia, and Ukraine. Due to insufficient production volumes, consumer needs are not fully met, and the resulting shortage is compensated by existing stocks.

This is reported by AgroReview

Global Demand and Export Trends

In Asia, the main buyers of barley remain China and Japan, while the primary suppliers for this region are Australia and Canada. Other importers are mainly concentrated around exporters from the Black Sea region.

This year, the European Union has started the barley export season particularly actively – export volumes have increased by 130% compared to last year, marking record rates for at least the last three years. The largest exporters in the EU are Romania and France, with Romania already having realized 65% of its export potential for the 2025/26 season.

Market Situation in Ukraine and Russia

Unlike the previous season, Russia has not announced any intentions to restrict the export of feed grains. In comparison, last year an export quota was introduced only for wheat in mid-February, while the export of barley and corn was effectively banned.

“The current season can be called successful for Ukrainian barley. Despite a sufficiently high harvest, prices have shown stable growth since the beginning of the season and have remained at a high level even when other feed crops were decreasing in price. As a result, barley is currently the most expensive feed grain on the Ukrainian market, highlighting strong demand and limited supply in the region.”

The mentioned factors indicate high demand and limited supply of barley in the region, which determines its leadership among feed grains in terms of price on the domestic market of Ukraine.