Exports, including oilseeds exported on a vegetable oil equivalent basis, are expected to reach a record 141 million tons in 2026/27, up 2 percent from 2025/26 and driven by growth of rapeseed and sunflowerseed oil and seed exports. Around 60 percent of vegetable oil consumed globally is imported, either as vegetable oil or as an oilseed that is crushed in the importing country.
This traded proportion of consumption is expected at 59 percent in 2026/27, down from a 62-percent average over the last decade. This ratio continues to fall, largely driven by increased domestic palm oil usage in producing countries. This pushed the traded proportion of palm oil consumption from nearly 75 percent in 2017/18 to under 60 percent in recent years.
Together, palm oil and soybean oil comprise nearly two-thirds of vegetable oil consumed globally. Palm oil, the top consumed oil, has seen a declining share in recent years as production growth has been outpaced by soybean oil. However, both are expected to be only minor contributors to the growth of global vegetable oil and equivalent exports in 2026/27.
Global palm oil production is expected to be down slightly from the record set in 2025/26, while exports are nearly 6.3 million tons below their peak in 2018/19. Sizable growth in Indonesia's industrial usage, driven by biofuel policy expansion, is the primary limiting factor for exportable supplies, and global palm oil exports are expected to decline by 2 percent.
Similarly, total soybean oil and equivalent exports are expected to increase by only 1 percent in 2026/27 on higher industrial usage in the United States and Brazil, despite strong soybean production growth.
Rapeseed oil and sunflowerseed oil comprise around one quarter of global vegetable oil consumption. Rapeseed oil, the third most consumed oil, has maintained its share of global consumption in recent years, enabled by production growth in Canada and Russia. Sunflowerseed oil is expected to recover its share of consumption on strong area growth in 2026/27 following 2 years of below-average Black Sea yields that led to...
Kazakhstan has sharply increased production of vegetable oil while simultaneously boosting exports. However, analysts at EnergyProm note that the rise in output has not yet led to lower consumer prices, Qazinform News Agency reports.
From January to July 2026, production of refined and unrefined vegetable oil reached 673,200 tons, up 29.1% year-on-year. Over the past decade, output has quadrupled.
Annual growth has accelerated with 389,900 tons produced in 2023, 427,400 tons in 2024, and 521,300 tons in 2025.
Unrefined sunflower oil output reached 473,100 tons, 29.4% up, while refined sunflower oil made 104,800 tons, 13.5% up.
Together, sunflower oil accounted for 85.8% of total production.
Refined rapeseed oil saw the sharpest increase up to 96.2% to 60,200 tons.
Soybean oil fell 9.2% to 7,900 tons, cottonseed oil dropped 29.7% to 3,300 tons.
In 2025, Kazakhstan harvested a record 4.9 million tons of oilseeds. In 2026, sowing expanded to 5.2 million hectares, 30% up year-on-year.
Sunflower planting reached a record 2.2 million hectares, up 25% in a year and 2.3 times higher than in 2021.
In January–June 2026, exports hit 560,600 tons, up 46.2% year-on-year.
Domestic sales fell 24.5% to 121,100 tons.
Sunflower oil exports alone rose 41.2% to 481,000 tons, while domestic sales dropped 28% to 83,900 tons.
In 2025, Kazakhstan ranked sixth globally in sunflower oil exports and the second-largest supplier of sunflower oil to China.
In January–June 2026, sunflower oil exports totaled 533 million US dollars.
Part of Bunge’s sunflower oil facility in Dnipro was damaged in a Russian attack on the city on September 10, 2026, and the plant has suspended operations, Bunge Ukraine said.
No employees were injured in the attack, the company added. “We will continue to monitor the situation and assess its further developments,” Bunge Ukraine said.
Russian forces launched two attacks on Dnipro on September 10. The strike damaged a food-processing facility and triggered a fire, killing two people and injuring five others, including a child, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service and the regional military administration.
Ukraine’s Air Force had warned of loitering munitions known as “Banderol” heading toward Dnipropetrovsk region. Explosions were reported in Dnipro at around 09:08 local time.
Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said the facility hit was Bunge’s sunflower oil plant, which has been targeted repeatedly. He stressed that the facility is owned by the US-based agribusiness company Bunge. The plant produces sunflower oil sold under the Oleina brand in Ukraine.
Bunge has operated in Ukraine since 2002 and is one of the country’s major grain and sunflower oil producers.
BEIJING/SINGAPORE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - China has bought around 1 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this week, four traders told Reuters, as the world's top oilseed buyer steps up purchases ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington later this month.
The purchases take China's total U.S. soybean buying to nearly half of the 25 million tons the White House said Beijing had committed to annually through 2028.
While China's purchases of U.S. soybeans could help bolster trade and diplomatic ties with Washington, the buying also coincides with tightening global oilseed supplies amid dwindling inventories in top exporter Brazil.
"There have been more purchases made by Sinograin in the past few days," said one Asia-based trader. "They have been buying before Xi's visit to U.S.
State buyers Sinograin and COFCO did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday reported 340,000 tons of U.S. soybean sales to China and another 100,000 tons to unknown destinations.
China still has a 10% additional tariff on all U.S. goods, including agricultural products after a tit-for-tat tariff war last year. A cut to the tariff on soybeans could draw private Chinese crushers back to U.S. supplies after tariffs largely shut them out of the market.
After a meeting between the two countries' leaders in May, Washington said China had agreed to buy $17 billion worth of non-soy U.S. agricultural goods annually through 2028, while maintaining its commitment to purchase 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans each year over the same period.
In late July, U.S. President Donald Trump said Xi would visit Washington on September 24. China has not confirmed the visit date or the volume of any planned purchases of U.S. soybeans or other agricultural goods.
Soyabean production in India is expected to fall by 8% in 2026/27 due to erratic monsoon rains and farmer diversification towards cotton and corn, according to a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report.
Soyabean production in India is expected to fall by 8% in 2026/27 due to erratic monsoon rains and farmer diversification towards cotton and corn, according to a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report.
Production was forecast at 9.6M tonnes, down from the USDA’s previous estimate of 10.4M tonnes, with yields forecast at 0.91 tonnes/ha.
This would be the second consecutive marketing year in which soyabeans remained India’s second largest domestically produced oilseed, after rapeseed, the USDA’s India: Oilseeds and Products Update said.
India’s soyabean planted area was also expected to decline to 10.5M ha – down 6% from the USDA’s previous estimate of 11.2M ha – due to monsoon conditions, with irregular rainfall during the planting window disrupting planting in parts of Maharashtra, a leading soyabean-producing state.
However, the adoption of high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties was expected to partially offset the effects of reduced planted areas.
Soyabean crushing was forecast at 8.7M tonnes, a 6% decrease from the previous forecast of 9.3M tonnes, reflecting expected drops in both production and yields.
“It is expected that India will bridge the resulting shortfall in edible oil supply by increasing imports of discounted soyabean oil,” the USDA said.
Despite the contraction in crushing volumes, food-use consumption was forecast to increase by 4% above the annual estimate of 820,000 tonnes, as rising demand for plant-based products – such as tofu, soya milk, and soya flour – continued to boost food-grade soyabean use.
Demand from the feed sector was also expected to rise by 25% over the annual forecast of 900,000 tonnes, due to poultry producers shifting towards greater soyabean meal usage – despite higher prices – as corn supplies were increasingly being diverted to ethanol production.
However, feed-use consumption remained 18% below the 2025/26 level.
Soyabean exports in 2026/27 were expected to hold steady at 25,000 tonnes, while imports were forecast at 500,000 tonnes, an increase of more than 100% from the previous annual forecast of 200,000 tonnes.
Kazakhstan’s Samsar Investment plans to export 3 thsd tons of refined sunflower oil per month to the South Korean market. The agreement was reached during the Kazakhstan-Korea Business Forum in Almaty.
If the announced monthly volumes are maintained, shipments could reach around 36 thsd tons of sunflower oil per year. The agreement expands the geography of Kazakhstan’s vegetable oil exports and strengthens the country’s presence in the Asian market.
During the forum, the two sides also agreed to implement a joint investment project for agricultural processing. The production facility will be built in Kazakhstan, with total investment from both sides estimated at $1.3 mln.
Overall, commercial agreements worth a total of $54.8 mln were signed at the Kazakhstan-Korea Business Forum, which brought together more than 200 business representatives from the two countries.
Trade between Kazakhstan and South Korea continues to grow. Bilateral trade reached $3.17 bln in 2025, compared with $3.13 bln a year earlier. In January-June 2026, trade totaled $1.3 bln, while Kazakhstan’s exports to South Korea increased by 17.2%.
Today, the European Commission adopted a Communication on a new Strategic Approach to Research and Innovation for competitive, resilient and sustainable agriculture, forestry, rural areas and food systems. This strategic document brings together two closely interlinked frameworks, to guide future research, innovation, deployment and uptake across the entire agri-food sector. These frameworks are AgRI 2040, focusing on agriculture, forestry and rural areas, and Food 2040, focusing on food systems, including fisheries and aquaculture.
The Communication aims to strengthen the agri-food innovation ecosystem from early-stage research and innovation to deployment and market uptake, and to accelerate the uptake of knowledge and innovation across the entire sector. It puts greater emphasis on users’ challenges and needs and on the delivery of real impact on the ground by bringing together multiple actors including end users, researchers and businesses, to co-create, test and demonstrate solutions in real-world settings. This will also help startups, scaleups and SMEs to move promising innovations closer to the market.
The Communication will help turn Europe’s scientific excellence into practical solutions for farmers, foresters, rural communities, researchers, food businesses and consumers, for a more competitive, resilient and sustainable agri-food sector. It contributes to the objectives of the Vision for Agriculture and Food and the Strategy for European Life Sciences and complements the EU Bioeconomy Strategy by supporting innovation and sustainable value creation.
By developing the AgRI 2040 and Food 2040 frameworks, a common strategic approach for EU-funded R&I that enables competitive, sustainable, resilient and fair agri-food systems will be ensured. Both frameworks will be deployed under Horizon Europe 2028-2034 and relevant parts of the European Competitiveness Fund.
Estonian biotechnology company ÄIO and applied research organisation TFTAK have secured €1.94M (US$2.25M) in funding to commercialise microbial oil production.
The funding would finance a three-year research and development project – DigiFoundry 2.0-Bioprocess Efficiency Increase via Digitalisation (DF2.0) – focused on developing next-generation technologies for microbial oil production, ÄIO said on 25 August.
DF2.0 followed on from the DigiFoundry project, a previous collaboration between the two companies.
The first project focused on creating a prototype platform for automated microbial strain design and establishing a Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle to accelerate the development of microorganisms capable of producing specialised fats through precision fermentation.
The project also included pilot-scale precision fermentation, sensory analysis and techno-economic assessment of the production process.
In the latest project, the earlier work would be taken to the next level by connecting biological development with improved fermentation, automation and digital process control, the company said.
The goal was to establish the technological foundation for efficient, scalable and cost-competitive production of ÄIO’s microbial oils while reducing both development and manufacturing costs and enabling faster development of new ingredients.
“With DigiFoundry, we built the foundation. With DF2.0, we are connecting biology, fermentation and digitalisation into one integrated production system,” said Prof Petri-Jaan Lahtvee, co-founder and COO of ÄIO and Professor at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech).
“Our goal is to make microbial oil production not only sustainable, but also highly efficient and economically competitive at an industrial scale.”
Founded in 2022 as a spin-off from Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), ÄIO processes agricultural and wood industrial waste into ingredients for the food, cosmetics and oleochemical industries.
Using specialised yeast fermentation, ÄIO’s technology converts sugars extracted from sawdust and other agricultural residues into oils rich in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and pigments.
The company said its yeast-derived ingredients were suitable for use in a range of cosmetics applications, from soap to facial moisturisers and serums, and make-up formulations with specialised pigments.
Estonia-based TFTAK works across bioprocess optimisation, food research, analytics and product development, supporting projects from laboratory research and pilot-scale development through to testing in industrial production.