Monday Market Briefing - 2nd March 2026

The US/Israeli coalition chose this weekend to poke a rather big stick in the hornet’s nest which is Iran. The action started in the early hours of Saturday so markets first reactions will appear during Monday trading. Typically we should see some short covering which had already started last week for different reasons – so expect to see grain markets open slightly higher but developments beyond that are impossible to predict at this early stage. At least we are not talking about tariffs for once!

Interestingly, and almost unnoticed, home new crop markets have quietly opened up a premium over the old crop during February. The May-Nov spread has reached £9 now having been £3-4 for most of January. US wheat futures have been firmer prompted by some drought concerns over there and last week French winter crop ratings took a dip, possibly because French farmers have been held back by rain from getting onto hungry crops which are a few weeks ahead of ours.

Forecasters still expect another record world crop this year, so the market isn’t really responding to an acute problem at this point, its more likely to be just a degree of frustration at the lack of forward sellers around.

A much better weather forecast for first-half March in the UK should mean we avoid a similar challenge when our own winter crops get going. Perhaps March is poised to present us all with some better selling opportunities at last.

Have a good week.