UZA increased the forecast grain harvest in Ukraine by almost 8 million tons

The Ukrainian Grain Association improved the 2023 harvest forecast by 7.8 million tons, to 76.8 million tons of grain and oilseeds. In 2022, according to UZA, the harvest reached 73.8 million tons. The improvement in the forecast for this year's harvest was explained by the association as "favorable weather conditions and a better crop yield than expected, although the sown areas are smaller than last year by 2.2 million hectares."

At the same time, under these conditions, exports from Ukraine in the new season of 2023/2024 could potentially amount to almost 48 million tons. Last season, according to UZA's assessment, exports reached 58 million tons, and Ukraine's revenue from the export of grain, oilseeds and oil for the last marketing year reached about 20 billion dollars.

"In general, the export of grain and oilseeds in the new 2023/2024 MR can be expected at the specified level, if Ukraine can export through its Black Sea ports, as well as under the condition of improving and reducing the cost of logistics of alternative routes, in particular the Danube route," UZA states.

However, the association notes, in the conditions of Russia's blockade of shipping in the Black Sea and its attack on port infrastructure, it is extremely important to make alternative export routes close to the cost of sea logistics.

As previously reported, the Ukrainian Grain Association officially appealed to the Executive Vice President, Trade Commissioner of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, regarding the optimization of alternative grain export routes from Ukraine to European ports with subsequent shipment to third countries. Because due to the disruption of the Black Sea Grain Initiative by the Russian Federation, Ukraine faced the need to additionally increase the throughput capacity of "Solidarity Paths" by approximately 1-1.5 million tons of grain per month.

This can be done by exporting grain through the ports of the Baltic countries, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia. Currently, these routes are underutilized due to the complexity and cost of logistics compared to other routes. Therefore, UZA proposed to introduce "green corridors" for Ukrainian agricultural products to the mentioned ports. For the implementation of this project, sanitary, phytosanitary and veterinary control is proposed to be carried out already on the territory of the destination country. The Association also suggests introducing subsidies for European carriers to compensate for additional transit transportation costs. In addition, it is proposed to introduce partial compensation for the ports of the so-called "port costs for Ukrainian grain".

Currently, it is known that 16.6 million tons of grain have been threshed in Ukraine in the current harvest campaign, 75.5% of which is wheat. Harvesting of early grain and leguminous crops as of the beginning of August was carried out on an area of 3,782 thousand hectares with a yield of 44.0 quintals per hectare. Agricultural producers of Mykolaiv Oblast remain the leaders in the collection of grain crops, they threshed 82% of the area, and the largest threshing in Odesa Oblast is over 2 million tons.