The volume of grain exports this year is one third behind last year

The export of grain crops from the beginning of the 2022-2023 marketing year (MR, July 2022 - June 2023) as of the beginning of December amounted to almost 19 million tons against 28.2 million tons on the corresponding date of the previous MR. The relevant indicators are given with reference to the information of the State Customs Service.

It should be noted that corn became the only grain crop that showed an increase in exports in the current season by 31.8%, up to 10.232 million tons. Exports of other major grains have significantly decreased. In particular, wheat was exported by 2.1 times less, and barley by 3.4 times. At the same time, 59.7 thousand tons of flour were exported against 55.5 thousand tons a year earlier. In general, only since the beginning of December, grain exports amounted to 1.092 million tons compared to 2.084 million tons last year. There is another leader here - wheat exports increased by 15.6% and amounted to 392,000 tons. The export of other main cereals decreased, in particular, corn - by 2.5 times, and barley - by 2.4 times. In addition, 4,400 tons of flour was exported since the beginning of December against 3,000 tons a year earlier.

The most significant problem for Ukrainian grain exports, as well as for harvesting, is created by Russian military aggression. Since October, Moscow has been striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure using missiles and drones. In particular, due to damage to the power system in the South, the main port of "Great Odesa" does not actually work, but grain is shipped in two other ports - South and Black Sea. That is why, as the Minister of Agriculture Mykola Solsky emphasized, the cessation of grain exports is not expected. In particular, the Black Sea port is currently operating at approximately 80% capacity. It should be noted that official Kyiv sought to expand the grain export agreement to include a larger number of ports, but so far this has not happened. The three ports of "Great Odesa" participating in the agreement - Odesa, Black Sea and Pivdenny - can ship about three million tons of grain per month. As previously reported, Ukraine wanted to include the ports of the Mykolaiv region, through which 35% of Ukrainian food exports were carried out before the Russian invasion, because Mykolaiv was Ukraine's second largest grain terminal according to data for 2021.

However, analysts revised the forecast for wheat exports from Ukraine. In particular, USDA experts left unchanged the wheat production forecast for Ukraine for 2022/23 MY (at the level of 20.5 million tons). At the same time, analysts revised the global wheat harvest in 2022/23 MR downwards. Thus, wheat production is forecast at the level of 780.59 million tons, which is 2.09 million less than the previous forecast (782.68 million tons in November).