By Joe Stonor
A roundup of key agricultural commodity markets for the week of March 2-6 by Dow Jones Newswires in Barcelona.
GRAINS & OILSEEDS: The escalating conflict in the Middle East will dominate the outlook for agricultural commodities this week. The U.S. and Israel's move to launch a massive attack on Iran over the weekend heightened geopolitical risk and pushed oil prices higher.
"Crude oil strength often translates into strength across agricultural futures," Peak Trading Research analyst Dave Whitcomb said.
Limited shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz could cause a significant spike in fertilizer prices. Roughly one quarter of the world's nitrogen-based fertilizer is estimated to travel through the region.
Outside of geopolitical risk, U.S. non-farm payroll data for February will be published Friday, alongside unemployment and retail sales data. A better-than-expected jobs print would lower the prospect of a Federal Reserve rate cut, in turn strengthening the dollar and lowering agricultural commodity prices.
Last week saw the biggest inflows into agricultural commodities since October, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Commitments of Traders report. More than $1.2 billion of investor capital is flowing into soybeans, and $1.5 billion into Chicago-traded wheat. The uptick was a result of weather risks across the U.S., Europe and Russia, as well as increased geopolitical risk, Rabobank analysts wrote.
Professional investors have now taken a net long position on agricultural commodities in five of the past six weeks, and are more bullish on agricultural commodities than at any time since February 2025, analysts at Peak Trading Research said.
Rains expected in Argentina are key for corn and soybean outlooks. Higher rainfall could improve yields, in turn lowering prices.
Wheat futures fell 1.9% in Chicago to $5.80 a bushel in European afternoon trade Monday, falling close to levels seen Friday before the U.S. attacks on Iran. Similarly, corn futures fell 0.8% to $4.45 a bushel, handing back weekend gains. Soybean traded flat at $11.28 a bushel.
SOFT COMMODITIES: Cocoa, sugar and coffee prices edged higher following the rapid escalation of conflict in the Middle East.
Sugar futures edged up 1% to 14.03 cents a pound, while Coffee futures jumped 1.2% to $2.84 a pound on the intercontinental exchange.
Investors bought into sugar on the expectation that Brazilian farmers will turn to ethanol production as oil and gas prices rise, tightening sugar supply.
A short-term recovery in coffee prices is expected given the scale of selling in the commodity in recent months, the Rabobank analysts said.
Cocoa jumped 4.9% to $3,026 a metric ton, though it remains cry below the $6,000 a ton level seen as recently as January.
There is little room for prices to fall further in the short term as farmers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana scale back production and bearish factors like oversupply are already factored in to the price, Rabobank analysts wrote.
Write to Joe Stonor at josephmichael.stonor@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 02, 2026 12:18 ET (17:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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