Crop Price Index Hits Highest Since November 2023

By: Ryan Hanrahan, University of Illinois' FarmDoc project - 05/01/2026

Bloomberg's Anuradha Raghu and Hallie Gu reported that "the extended closure of the Strait of Hormuz and extreme weather have jolted the price index for farm commodities to a two-year high as fertilizer headaches and the prospect of smaller harvests drive food inflation risks."

"The Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index, which tracks 10 of the world's top-selling crop products, has climbed for a third straight month to the highest level since November 2023. That's a pronounced shift from before the war, when most crop prices were weighed down by abundant inventory and bumper harvests," Raghu and Gu reported. "Now, farmers from Asia to Australia and the US are grappling with converging challenges posed by the Iran war and drought, pressuring the prices of staple food products from bread to pasta and cooking oil."

"Wheat and corn, both fertilizer-intensive crops, are among the hardest hit. The most actively traded wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade have surged 11% since the war erupted in late February, and hit the highest level in almost two years this week. Corn has climbed 6% in the past two months to the highest in a year," Raghu and Gu reported. "Some farmers in major producing countries have had to reduce planting to cut costs. Persistent dryness in the US Great Plains is driving up wheat prices, while severe weather outlooks are causing concern in other key regions including Australia and Russia. The spillover effect is impacting corn."

"'Weather is now emerging as a second major layer of risk,' (Kang Wei Cheang, an agricultural broker at StoneX in Singapore) said," according to Raghu and Gu's reporting. "Forecasts for an El?Niño later this year matters most for crops such as palm oil, soybeans, and corn 'where heat stress or disrupted rainfall during key growing periods can quickly tighten' supply balances, he added."

"Soybean oil prices in Chicago have surged nearly 50% this year to hit their highest since 2022, lifted by stronger US biofuel mandates and the rally in energy markets," Raghu and Gu reported. "Palm oil is up 12% as top growers Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand move to use more of the crop in biofuel."

Wheat Hits Highest Since 2024

Bloomberg's Michael Hirtzer reported that "wheat surged to the highest in nearly two years as drought in the US was pressuring yields at a time soaring fertilizer costs prompted farmers to pare back planting of nutrient-intensive crops such as grains."

"Futures for soft red winter wheat in Chicago climbed as much as 4.1%, touching the highest level since June 2024, as there was little relief in sight for US Plains wheat fields planted last autumn that now are withering with a lack of rain," Hirtzer reported. "The US Department of Agriculture late Monday kept crop ratings unchanged at just 30% rated good or excellent, although the percentage of wheat rated poor or very poor increased."

AgWeb's Michelle Rook reported that the nation's hard red winter (HRW) wheat crop currently "ranks as the fifth-worst crop in history. The primary cause is drought, which currently impacts 68% of the crop."

"Justin Gilpin, CEO of Kansas Wheat, says the Kansas crop has deteriorated substantially," Rook reported. "'We had a lot of optimism when this crop went in the ground in the fall,' Gilpin says. 'It got up and established. It looked pretty promising. It just couldn't get Mother Nature to cooperate with rains.'

"He points out the national rating is being buoyed by better soft red and white winter wheat crops," Rook reported. "'If you break out this--just that hard red winter wheat portion, especially the Southern Plains to Nebraska, Colorado, on down to Texas--you know, you're looking at a hard red winter wheat number on that good-to-excellent rating at below 15%,' Gilpin says. 'Which is, you know, rivaling that very drought-devastated crop that we had in 2023, unfortunately.'"

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