The Great Realignment: How Technology and Transition Are Rewriting Global Trade

The October 2025 Commodity Market Outlook by the World Bank, IMF, and FAO depicts a world cautiously stabilizing after years of volatility, driven by energy diversification, technological transformation, and the green transition. It highlights a rebalanced yet fragile global economy where resilience, sustainability, and regional realignments define the future of commodities.

The October 2025 Commodity Market Outlook (CMO), produced collaboratively by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), offers a sweeping examination of global commodity markets at a pivotal moment. The report positions 2025 as a year of “measured correction,” when prices, trade flows, and production are gradually stabilizing after years of shocks caused by the pandemic, war, and climate extremes. Yet beneath this apparent calm, profound shifts are underway. Energy diversification, the green transition, and digital transformation are quietly rewriting the rules of global trade. The CMO describes a world economy edging toward equilibrium, one that is steadier than in the chaos of 2022 but still shadowed by the risk of geopolitical and environmental volatility.

Energy Markets Find Fragile Balance

Oil markets, once defined by turbulence, have settled into a cautious balance. Prices remain within a moderate range, reflecting both OPEC+’s continued supply restraint and resilient U.S. shale output. The report emphasizes that the energy system’s newfound stability rests on diversification, Europe’s expanded LNG infrastructure, Asia’s increased renewable capacity, and improved strategic reserves. Natural gas, whose prices once soared amid Europe’s supply crisis, has stabilized thanks to milder winters and declining demand from heavy industry. However, the World Bank analysts warn that this fragile equilibrium could be disrupted by political flare-ups or extreme weather events, now more frequent in an era of climate unpredictability.

Agriculture’s Recovery and Uneven Resilience

The report paints a nuanced picture of the agricultural sector: recovery tempered by vulnerability. Global grain production has rebounded as favorable conditions in South Asia and Latin America offset weather damage elsewhere. Wheat, rice, and maize yields are rising again, supported by better access to fertilizers and improved irrigation technology. Still, the persistence of El Niño conditions and shifting rainfall patterns threaten to undo these gains. Food prices, though far below their 2022 highs, continue to diverge between regions. In sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East, weaker currencies and high transport costs are driving localized inflation. The FAO’s data reveal that while input costs have fallen, food security in developing economies remains precarious.

Metals Drive the Green Transition

Nowhere is structural change more visible than in metals and minerals. The CMO underscores how the surge in demand for copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt is being driven by renewable energy systems and electric vehicles. China’s industrial recovery, boosted by fiscal incentives for clean manufacturing, has revived demand for these “green metals,” even as real estate construction remains stagnant. The IMF’s projections suggest that supply shortages, especially in lithium refining, could keep prices high well into the next decade. In contrast, traditional materials like iron ore are losing momentum amid sluggish construction. This divergence, the report notes, marks a deeper transformation: the global commodity system is aligning itself with climate priorities, rewarding low-carbon inputs and penalizing fossil-intensive production chains.

Fertilizer Markets Normalize but Risks Persist

After years of turmoil, fertilizer markets have entered a correction phase. Prices of urea, potash, and phosphates have fallen nearly 40 percent since 2022, thanks to increased natural gas supply and reopened export routes from Eastern Europe. This normalization has eased the cost burden on farmers worldwide, contributing to more stable food prices. Yet, affordability remains uneven. For smallholders in developing countries, exchange rate pressures and transport bottlenecks continue to limit access. The FAO highlights that the decline in fertilizer prices, though welcome, has not fully translated into lower food costs in fragile economies, underscoring how financial and logistical asymmetries persist along global supply chains.

A Future Defined by Transition and Fragmentation

The report concludes by outlining three forces that will shape commodities over the coming decade. The first is the acceleration of the global energy transition, which is transforming investment strategies and redefining carbon as a central metric of competitiveness. The second is technological disruption: artificial intelligence, precision agriculture, and digital trade platforms are revolutionizing how commodities are produced, priced, and traded. The third is geopolitical fragmentation. Regional blocs like BRICS+ and new trade alliances in Africa and Asia are redrawing the map of global commerce, moving the world away from hyper-globalization toward a network of overlapping regional systems.

In essence, the report presents a world emerging cautiously from crisis into a redefined order, one where data and sustainability guide decision-making, and where resilience, not expansion, has become the dominant ambition. It is a portrait of a planet learning to balance growth with limits, volatility with adaptation, and competition with cooperation.