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What did the main 2025 forecasts say?
The World Bank’s April 2025 Commodity Markets Outlook put its 2025 barley benchmark at $180 per metric ton, maize at $187 per metric ton, and U.S. hard red winter (HRW) wheat at $263 per metric ton. The wheat figure is for that named U.S. grade, not a generic world wheat price. These are nominal-dollar calendar-year benchmarks.
| Grain and benchmark | World Bank 2025 forecast | Change from 2024 in the World Bank forecast table | USDA ERS international outlook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barley | $180 per metric ton, nominal dollars; World Bank Prospects Group, April 2025 outlook | Not stated: the World Bank table leaves its 2023 and 2024 barley entries blank, so it does not support a year-over-year calculation. | The reviewed USDA ERS summary does not provide a comparable global barley price figure. |
| Maize (corn) | $187 per metric ton, nominal dollars; World Bank Prospects Group, April 2025 outlook | Down 1.9% year over year in the World Bank’s April 2025 forecast. | USDA ERS projected international corn prices to decline in 2025 from their 2021–23 peak. These projections are in 2017 dollars and use assumptions as of October 2024. |
| U.S. hard red winter wheat | $263 per metric ton, nominal dollars; World Bank Prospects Group, April 2025 outlook | Down 2.1% year over year in the World Bank’s April 2025 forecast. | USDA ERS projected international wheat prices to decrease in 2025. These projections are in 2017 dollars and use assumptions as of October 2024; the World Bank’s named U.S. grade is not interchangeable with a generic world wheat benchmark. |
The World Bank percentages are reported only for maize and U.S. HRW wheat. Its displayed barley series does not supply the prior-year values needed to calculate a comparable percentage.
Why do the forecasts use different prices?
The figures answer different questions. A calendar-year international benchmark, a long-term international projection in inflation-adjusted dollars, and a U.S. farm price for a marketing year cannot be read as if they were competing estimates of the same transaction.
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- Geography and benchmark: The World Bank’s wheat number is specifically U.S. HRW wheat. USDA ERS discusses international price trends, while USDA WASDE’s farm-price estimates concern U.S. producers.
- Units: The World Bank quotes dollars per metric ton. USDA WASDE quotes dollars per bushel. The units should not be compared directly; even a unit conversion would not make the grades, geography, or price basis identical.
- Time period: The World Bank figures are calendar-year 2025 forecasts. The WASDE figures below are for the U.S. 2025/26 marketing year.
- Inflation basis and forecast date: World Bank values are nominal dollars. USDA ERS’s longer-horizon international projections are in 2017 dollars and rely on production, consumption, and trade assumptions as of October 2024. The World Bank outlook came later, in April 2025.
What did USDA forecast for U.S. farm prices?
In its June 12, 2025 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE-661), USDA forecast season-average U.S. farm prices for the 2025/26 marketing year as follows:
| Crop | USDA June 12, 2025 WASDE forecast | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat | $5.40 per bushel | U.S. season-average farm price for marketing year 2025/26; not the World Bank’s calendar-year price per metric ton. |
| Corn | $4.20 per bushel | U.S. season-average farm price for marketing year 2025/26; not the World Bank’s calendar-year price per metric ton. |
For wheat, USDA said in that June report: “The projected 2025/26 season-average farm price is $0.10 per bushel higher at $5.40 on the reduced stocks.” The explanation refers to the U.S. wheat forecast and the report’s stock outlook; it does not convert the figure into an international benchmark.
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How should readers interpret the direction?
The clearest shared signal is directional rather than a single price target: USDA ERS expected international wheat and corn prices to fall in 2025, and the World Bank’s April outlook forecast modest year-over-year declines for its maize and U.S. HRW wheat benchmarks. For barley, the World Bank supplied a 2025 benchmark, but the cited material does not establish either a comparable USDA ERS global price trend or a World Bank year-over-year change.
USDA ERS placed the expected decline in a broader context of abundant supplies and lower input prices, including fuel and feed. That is an explanation for the projection, not a guarantee: actual prices depend on production, consumption, trade, and other conditions that can differ from assumptions made when a forecast was published.
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Forecasts are snapshots, not promises. USDA publishes WASDE monthly, covering U.S. and world supply and demand for crops including wheat and feed grains such as corn and barley. New estimates of supply, use, trade, and stocks can change the outlook, so the June 2025 WASDE values should be identified by their release date rather than treated as a fixed USDA prediction for the entire year.
USDA ERS’s Global Food Assessments, 2025–35 takes a longer view using USDA Agricultural Projections to 2034, with international prices expressed in 2017 dollars. The World Bank’s April 2025 table is a later forecast vintage and reports nominal dollars. Neither source, as represented here, establishes the final average prices realized over all of 2025.
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