Its shares were down 4.25 per cent in premarket trading.

Chicago-based ADM reported its weakest fourth-quarter adjusted profit since 2019 as slumping soybean processing margins in North and South America and poor U.S. soybean exports dented earnings for its Agricultural Services and Oilseeds business, its largest segment.

Low prices erode profits

A global grains glut that has dragged down prices of staple crops like corn and soybeans to near multi-year lows has eroded profits for ADM and agribusiness peers like Bunge and Cargill. U.S. biofuel policy delays and trade turmoil stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff wars created further pressure on the global grains merchants.

The downbeat outlook comes as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department concluded investigations into whether ADM had inflated the performance of a key business segment. ADM agreed to pay a $40 million civil penalty to settle SEC charges while the DOJ closed its criminal investigation, drawing a line under a years-long scandal that forced the company to twice revise its financial reports.

ADM reported adjusted earnings of 87 cents per share for the quarter ended December 31, down from $1.14 a share a year earlier but above the consensus analyst estimate of 80 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.

CEO Juan Luciano said operating profit for 2025 was affected by a turbulent global trade landscape and ongoing uncertainty around U.S. biofuel policy. Resolutions “should support a more constructive operating environment for us in 2026,” he added.

Biofuel policy delay creates caution

The U.S. government has been slow to finalize some biofuels policies, a delay that has slowed use of feedstocks like the soybean oil produced at ADM processing plants.

ADM reported adjusted earnings for 2025 of $3.43 per share. Its 2026 adjusted earnings outlook of $3.60 to $4.25 per share hinged on those biofuel policies and whether slumping soy processing margins improve. The midpoint is less than analysts’ average estimate of $4.24 apiece, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Last month, Reuters reported that the Trump administration plans to finalize long-delayed 2026 biofuel blending quotas by early March, keeping them close to its initial proposal while dropping a plan to penalize imports of renewable fuels and feedstocks.

The delays have led biofuel makers and the suppliers of feedstocks like ADM to hold back on deals and delay spending decisions that shape output and margins.

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Ukraine is a major grain and oilseeds grower and exporter and the new system became operational on Dec. 1.

The government launched the plan to tackle price distortions linked to Russia’s invasion, which has seen an increase in domestic cash purchases of some agricultural products and their subsequent export at artificially low prices to avoid taxes.

In line with the new rules, minimum permissible export prices will be calculated on the basis of state customs service data, taking into account the terms of delivery for the previous month and using a 10 per cent discount.

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Traders did not expect a significant impact on grain shipments from the decision, saying measures to restrict grain exports have been announced in past years but had not had a major impact on shipments.

“The general opinion is that the minimum prices will not disrupt Ukraine’s export flows,” one European trader said.

“The expectation is that the minimum prices are being set so low that traders should be within their comfort zone and happy to continue sales. But we still need to wait to see if the government takes stronger measures.”

The farm ministry has already published the minimum prices at its website minagro.gov.ua and will refresh it on the 10th of each month.

The ministry also said that it has abolished the need for exporters to go through the vetting process and obtain licences to export food products.

The mechanism implied mandatory registration of an export company in a special agricultural register and, in the absence of such registration, the need to obtain a licence for each export operation.

– Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg

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The EU executive arm said that during that period, Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed can be sold to any other of country of the 27-nation bloc, except to the five countries, which had complained the cheaper Ukrainian grain was making domestic production unprofitable.

The EU had earlier liberalized all imports from Ukraine to help the country’s efforts to fend off the Russian invasion. The five countries became transit routes for Ukrainian grain that could not be exported through the country’s Black Sea ports because of the war.

“The products can continue to circulate in or transit via these five member states by means of a common customs transit procedure or go to a country or territory outside the EU,” the Commission said.

With the Commission restrictions in place, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia agreed to lift their unilateral bans for entry of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed they had imposed earlier to protect their farmers.

The Commission’s measures also include a support package worth 100 million euros (C$149.95 million) for local farmers in the most affected five EU countries.

The Commission, which is responsible for trade policy in the European Union, said it could extend the grain import restrictions beyond June 5 if exceptional conditions continue.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jan Strupczewski.

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The heat is mounting on Brussels to work out a European Union wide solution after Warsaw and Budapest announced bans on some imports from Ukraine at the weekend, with other countries in eastern Europe saying they are also considering action.

Farmers say imports from Ukraine have lowered prices and reduced their sales. In Poland, the issue has created a problem in an election year for the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that relies on rural areas for much of its support.

“Ukraine needs help, but the costs of this help should be spread over all European countries, not just the frontline countries, especially Poland. We do not agree to this, because it harms our farmers,” Polish agriculture minister Robert Telus said after talks that began in Warsaw on Monday.

Kyiv said it aims to re-open food and grain transit via Poland as “a first step” to ending import bans, but Telus said that no solution had so far been found to guarantee that the grain in transit would not end up on the local market.

Some Black Sea ports were blocked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began last year and logistical bottlenecks trapped large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the EU, in central European countries.

The Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian export and transit bans come as a deal to allow the export of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, despite the Ukraine war, nears its May 18 expiry. Meanwhile, Russian demands have left the prospect of an extension of this deal uncertain.

The combined impact of the bans and failure to agree an extension would strand millions of tonnes of grain inside Ukraine, a major agricultural producer that makes a substantial part of its gross domestic product from food sales.

“The first step … should be the opening of transit, because it is quite important and it is the thing that should be done unconditionally and after that we will talk about other things,” Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said before the talks in Warsaw.

To prevent any grain entering its market, Poland’s ban also covered transit through the country, which imported 2.45 million tonnes of grain, or three quarters of total imports, from Ukraine in 2022, Polish agriculture ministry data showed.

The bans have left truck drivers stranded for several days in long traffic jams on the border baffled.

“We can’t go in either direction. Yes, the Poles reached out to us, I’m very thankful to them. I’m immensely grateful, the whole of Ukraine is, the whole world even. But now, Poland doesn’t let (us) in for some reason,” Mykola Bervin, a driver from Zhytomyr in Ukraine, told Reuters.

Bervin said he had been stuck for three days and the tailback was more than 25 kilometres long.

EU action ‘inevitable’

Slovakia approved halting imports indefinitely following Poland’s move, although it maintained transit, while the BTA news agency reported that Bulgaria’s agriculture minister also said the country could limit imports.

Istvan Nagy, Hungary’s farm minister, said a solution was needed beyond the national level, calling eventual EU measures inevitable. The Czech Republic also urged an EU-wide solution while saying it would not introduce a ban itself for now.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia raised the issue with the European Commission last month, saying tariffs on Ukrainian imports should be considered, while states have also pushed for an EU purchase mechanism to buy up cheap grain.

Telus said that six countries would like to meet with the EU commissioner responsible for trade to find a solution.

A senior EU official said EU envoys would discuss Poland and Hungary’s bans on Wednesday – after the bloc’s executive said on Sunday that unilateral action was unacceptable.

The official said low global prices and demand meant grain was staying in the bloc rather than being sold on.

— Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Andriy Perun in Rava-Ruska and Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper in Warsaw, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels, Boldizsar Gyori in Budapest, and Jan Lopatka in Prague; writing by Tom Balmforth, Jason Hovet and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk.

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Some of the world’s poorest nations were hardest hit by a spike in corn and wheat prices after Russia’s invasion of major grains producer Ukraine in late February, due to their reliance on imports and the large percentage of income consumers spend on food.

Now, Meyer said developing countries in North Africa and elsewhere could be the first to see some relief in prices at grocery stores, as commodity crops have fallen to pre-war levels and the North American crops develops.

“It is a more immediate effect. Lower commodity prices reduce the import bill of certain importing countries and can moderate some of what we’ve seen in relation to food price inflation,” Meyer said at an agriculture conference in Sao Paulo.

World food prices fell for a third consecutive month in June, but remained close to record high levels set in March, the United Nations’ food agency said earlier this month.

Meyer said in the United States there would be a bigger lag because food goes through more processing and complex supply chains. U.S. consumer prices accelerated in June as gasoline and food costs remained elevated, resulting in the largest annual increase in inflation in 40-1/2 years.

“Wheat, corn or rice make up a pretty small share of the food dollars that consumers spend,” Meyer said. “The more processed a product you have, the longer the lag in the transmission into food price inflation and the more sticky those output prices are for more processed commodities.”

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While the prices of mustard in Western Canada are still much higher than last year, they have been steady to lower over the past month. According to Prairie Ag Hotwire, the high-delivered bid for yellow mustard is at C$1.50 per pound, a decline of 41 cents from one month ago, but still a full dollar higher than last year.

The high-delivered bid for brown mustard has been steady at C$2.01/lb. from a month ago, but C$1.58 higher than at this point in 2021. Oriental mustard lost one cent this month, but gained 64 cents from the year before at C$1.00/lb.

Lionel Ector, president of Diefenbaker Spice & Pulse located near Elbow, Sask., said mustard growers should be pleased with this year’s crop.

“Mustard is a semi-arid type plant and that’s the weather conditions we’re getting currently,” Ector said.

In Statistics Canada’s March 2022 principal field crops report, Saskatchewan was projected to seed 345,500 acres of mustard seed in 2022, the most since 2018 and nearly 50 per cent more than in 2021. The province is the world’s largest producer of the yellow mustard variety.

Ector attributes the rise in acres to mustard’s high-rising prices from last year, but warns the rise in prices won’t be continuous.

“The supply chain doesn’t fill up overnight. There might be early pressure at harvest as farmers need cash flow, but Canada is the number-one exporter in the world and I think prices should be strong all year. How strong? I don’t know,” he said.

Processors may also have enough mustard seed with reduced demand causing a softening in prices, according to Ector.

“I think a lot of manufacturers or end users might have secured enough where they’re able to ration enough of their supply to meet their customers’ needs,” he said, adding that processing plants like old crop better because of more consistency in the manufacturing process.

Ector said that good amounts of precipitation are the reason why many crops are in good shape, but he fears another repeat of last year’s weather conditions.

“As soon as we get into more of our typical summer weather, things could go backwards quite quick,” he said.

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Lean hogs also eased on profit taking, while feeder cattle also followed live cattle for a loss.

CME October live cattle futures fell 1.525 cents, to 108.35 cents/lb. (all figures US$). Most-active December cattle dropped 1.775 cents, to 110.825 cents.

CME January feeder cattle dropped 0.35 cent to 133.65 cents/lb. as rising grain prices translate to higher feed costs, cutting into profit margins.

“The trade believes we are out of the woods on these front-end cattle, with respect to the pushing back from the packer shutdown, but we aren’t through these cattle,” said Larry Hicks, CEO of CattleHedging.com. “Expect lower fed cattle prices and live cattle futures the balance of October.”

Hicks said heavier carcass weights are reminiscent of the end of 2015, when prices dipped and remained lower through the beginning of 2016.

“We’re not going to have the big first-quarter rally into April that everybody thinks we seasonally should,” he said.

Boxed beef prices gained, with choice cuts adding $1.15, to $215.21, and select cuts increasing $1.70, to $201.52.

Packer margins fell to $226.65 per head on Monday, down $73.10 from a week ago, according to Denver-based livestock marketing advisory service HedgersEdge.com LLC.

Meanwhile, lean hogs ended lower as profit-taking pulled back the market after five days of gains.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange October lean hogs advanced 0.05 cent to 78.175 cents/lb. Most-active December hogs settled 0.5 cents lower at 66.625 cents.

— Christopher Walljasper reports on agriculture and ag commodities for Reuters from Chicago.

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But they said the extent was still limited and there were no signs importers were making especially large purchases to expand stocks.

“We are seeing bargain buying this week by countries which need grains and can make big savings by moving into the market,” one European trader said. “But inventories are not being expanded.”

The brisk international grain purchase tender market on Tuesday included Tunisia buying wheat and durum, South Korean buyers NOFI and FLC both purchased corn and Algeria bought barley.

Jordan sought wheat but failed to buy, while Egypt also issued a new tender for soyoil and sunflower oil. South Korea’s NOFI was also in negotiations about buying soymeal.

Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures on Monday dropped to a five-month low, soybeans fell to their lowest in nearly 10 months while corn dropped to a six-month low.

“It is a brisk mix of relatively small bargain-hunting as prices look very attractive,” another European trader said. “But the collapse in crude oil prices also appears to be making oil-producing countries cautious about spending extra money in these dramatic days.”

“I think we will see more of this bargain-hunting for comparatively small volumes of grains in coming days. People still need to eat and farm animals need to be fed despite the coronavirus uncertainties.”

“South Korea is one of the worst-hit countries by coronavirus but its importers are among the most-active grain buyers today.”

A European grain analyst also said he could not see current evidence of new stockpiling by grain importing countries and that some large recent purchases such as the 680,000 tonnes of milling wheat bought by Algeria on Thursday could also be explained by market reasons.

“Algeria made a big purchase for May shipment, but it’s difficult to say if it was because of concern about the coronavirus or as they’ve been running behind in their overall wheat purchases since the start of the season,” he said. “I think it’s more the latter reason.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Michael Hogan, additional reporting by Gus Trompiz.

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“Now they’re bidding January and forward,” said Allen Pirness of Market Place Commodities in Lethbridge.

Bids for feed barley and feed wheat delivered from January to March were around $220 per tonne, according to Pirness. December spot prices ranged from $225 to $230 per tonne.

While supply and quality concerns have largely dissipated, logistical challenges have lingered. A shortage of trucks has complicated the supply chain of shipping feed grains from Saskatchewan to Alberta.

Feed grain prices peaked in mid-June, when barley prices were around $290 per tonne in southern Alberta.

Despite dry growing conditions and a challenging harvest, Canadian barley production was around 10 million tonnes for 2019, according to crop production estimates released Friday by Statistics Canada. That was at the top end of trade expectations, and compares with the previous year, when just over eight million tonnes of barley were produced.

“It feels like prices are under pressure,” said Pirness. “We’ll see if the next move is lower or not.”

— Marlo Glass reports for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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“It’s probably gone up $5 this week,” Loyns said.

This year’s extended harvest, coupled with large amounts of grain to move around, has put heavy demand on trucks, he explained.

“We’re really struggling with freight costs out of Saskatchewan. Freight costs out of anywhere have gone up,” Loyns said.

The prolonged harvest is thought to have largely come to an end, according to the most recent crop reports from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Accumulations of snow have made completing the last bit of harvests more challenging, although below-freezing temperatures firmed up the fields to better support combines.

Markets should soon settle down as most of the harvest is now over, Loyns said. That, he noted, could result in prices slipping a little.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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