Analyst insight: Supply and demand estimates in 2025/26 present an unbalanced picture

The latest data on UK wheat supply and demand for the July 2025 – June 2026 marketing season is showing a material imbalance. Total availability exceeds the attributable end destinations for the grain.

UK wheat supply is made up of wheat held in store at the start of the season, production and imports.

At the end of the season we would expect to be able to account for where this wheat ends up, either as domestic demand, exports or ending stocks.

But as many of these aspects are based on surveys and estimates, we don’t expect the totals to match. In short, we expect a gap or a residual for unaccounted grain.

While there are areas of uncertainty, these estimates still provide valuable insights into supply and demand for the whole industry. And having a residual provides more transparency over the limitations of the estimates.

For the 2025/26 season, the estimated residual is larger than recent years at 794 Kt, equating to 6% of total demand.

This residual suggests that one or more of the surveys or estimates didn’t fully capture what happened last season.

The end of season estimates of 2025/26 supply and demand are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. End of season estimates of UK wheat supply and demand in 2025/26 in thousand tonnes

n/a = not applicable

We think the mostly likely explanations for the larger residual in 2025/26 are a combination of:

• Production in 2025 was lower than reported
• End of season on-farm stocks were higher than estimated
• Demand from July 2025 to June 2026 was higher than we estimated

All of these were likely affected by the extreme weather over the past year, adding to the uncertainty over the accuracy of what was captured in the data for the season.

We’ve seen sizeable changes to our industry and shifts in cropping in recent years as a result of falls in profitability, variable weather and policy changes.

In addition, extreme weather led to highly variable but on average historically low yields in 2025.

All of which, make it harder to estimate the crop.

In December, Defra estimated the 2025 UK wheat crop at 11.958 Mt, of which, 10.677 Mt was produced in England.

Like all surveys, the production survey may not fully capture its target data, in this case, the crop size.

One way to look at the potential variation in the crop size is the Confidence Interval (CI). A CI is a statistic that gives a range of values we can be fairly sure the true value lies within.

The CI for the 2025 English wheat crop was 226 Kt, suggesting a range of 10.452 – 10.903 Mt.

This would not fully account for the residual, but if the actual crop was towards the lower end of the CI range in England, this would be contributing to the wheat residual.

Similarly, there are CIs for on-farm stocks held on farms in England and Wales at the end of June.

Defra estimates a sharp, 46%, year-on-year fall in these stocks to 351 Kt. This echoes with market comments from earlier this year, that English supplies were tightening in the latter stages of the season and wheat was getting harder to source. 

The CI for this figure was 95 Kt, and suggests a potential range of 256 – 446 Kt.

Even if the stocks were towards the upper end of range, it would still mean a historically low stock level.

This would still align with industry sentiment on the tightness in stocks whilst also accounting for some of the residual.

The amount of grain fed-on-farm is estimated based on industry insight rather than observable data sources. Therefore, it is subject to different uncertainties than the surveys.

This aspect of the balance sheet is a known ‘unknown’.

While there are factors supporting a higher volume of grain being fed-on-farm, there are also limiting factors.

AHDB’s Forage for Knowledge shows how grass growth was badly affected in the early months of the grain marketing season for a panel of dairy farms across GB.

As a result of the lower grass growth, forage needed to be fed early, and stocks reportedly ran low over the winter.

However, the numbers of cattle, pigs and sheep reported by Defra reduce the outlook for grain fed-on-farm.

Also, falls in the UK farmgate milk prices last autumn likely reduced the incentive to supplemental feed beyond what was needed. Pig net margins have reduced over the season (Jul-Jun) providing a mixed picture on the implications for feed demand.

Meanwhile, changes to the livestock sectors over recent years include increased integration in the pig sector and larger cattle finishing units. While these may have also contributed, the resulting changes for feed are likely to be more incremental, rather than driving the large increase in the residual seen this year.

We will continue to work with Defra and the industry to further understand the market with an aim to improve the data and broader insights which feed into the balance sheets.

This is achieved through the Audit Function Group, which meets several times a year.  

For any further comments or queries on the residual, please contact me through the details in my profile or email Cereals.MI@ahdb.org.uk.

Our first estimates of wheat and barley supply and demand in the 2026/27 season are planned for release on Thursday 22 October.

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