Brazil, the world's largest soybean producer and exporter, harvested its largest-ever soybean crop in the 2025–26 season, with production exceeding 180 million metric tons, according to estimates from S&P Global Energy CERA. Yet despite this unprecedented supply, prices have remained remarkably resilient, climbing to multiyear highs rather than buckling under the weight of abundance.

Market sources attribute the price strength to a convergence of factors: robust export demand, expanding domestic processing capacity, limited farmer selling, and weather-related support from the US soybean market.

Abiove, the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, recently revised its projections to reflect strong demand across the soybean complex. The association raised its 2026 Brazilian soybean export forecast to a record 115.4 million metric tons and increased its crushing estimate to an all-time high of 63.3 million metric tons. Brazil's crushing expansion has been driven in part by growing domestic demand for biodiesel, as national blending mandates require increasing volumes of renewable fuel content in the diesel pool. With both exports and domestic processing climbing, Abiove reduced its ending stocks projection, even as production estimates remained largely unchanged.

Brazil's export program has maintained a brisk pace. According to ANEC, the Brazilian grain exporters' association, soybean shipments in July are projected to reach 12.49 million metric tons — a 4.6% increase compared to July 2025. This figure would establish a new monthly record and push cumulative 2026 exports 6.3% above the same period a year earlier, absorbing a substantial portion of the harvest.

Concurrently, market participants report uneven farmer selling across Brazil. With CBOT soybean futures trading at elevated levels in recent weeks, producers have felt little pressure to release remaining old-crop inventories, tightening spot availability and underpinning export values. This constrained commercial flow has coincided with rising international benchmarks, further reinforcing FOB prices.

Export values have reflected these dynamics. On July 24, Platts assessed the SOYBEX FOB Santos soybean contract for September loading at $504.24 per metric ton — the highest spot value in more than two and a half years. Market participants noted active interest in both old-crop and new-crop shipments, with trading concentrated in the FOB Paranaguá paper market, particularly around February–March 2027 positions.

Chinese demand has also lent support to the market. China is the world's largest soybean importer, relying heavily on Brazilian and US supplies to feed its livestock sector, where soybean meal is a critical protein ingredient in animal feed rations. Sources indicate that buyers have grown more cautious recently, however. Trading activity in the CFR China market slowed as elevated Brazilian soybean prices and weakened domestic crushing margins dampened buying appetite. Nonetheless, cargoes from both Brazil and the United States continued to change hands, as China maintains substantial forward demand coverage requirements for the coming months.

Weather concerns in key US growing regions have provided additional upward momentum for CBOT soybean futures, analysts noted. The resulting rise in futures prices has lifted export values across major origins, including Brazil, helping to offset the bearish implications of a record crop. Consequently, Brazilian FOB prices have held firm despite the country's historically large harvest.

The outcome is an unusual market dynamic in which record production is being met by record demand. Strong exports, expanding crush capacity, deliberate farmer holding, and weather-driven support from Chicago have collectively prevented the massive crop from pressuring prices downward. For now, market attention is focused less on the volume Brazil has produced and more on the pace at which global consumption continues to absorb supply.

Platts is part of S&P Global Energy. Source: Platts