KYIV – Ukraine’s grain exports could fall to around 26 million tons in the 2023/24 season as the grain harvest has sunk, largely due to Russia’s invasion, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday.
Ukraine harvested a record 86 million tons of grain in 2021 and 53 million tons in 2022, the first year of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine has already exported 41.6 million tons of grain in the 2022/23 July-June season and overall exports could exceed 50 million tons, almost twice the estimate for the new season.
The ministry sees this year’s crop at around 44 million tons. Taras Vysotskiy, the first deputy minister, told Reuters that the ministry was keeping the grain harvest outlook unchanged despite poor weather.
Heavy rains and chilly weather in effect halted Ukraine’s sowing campaign in April and farmers resumed active work in fields only this month.
Up to half a million hectares of spring grain crops may not be sown this year because it is no longer technically possible to sow the fields in the required terms.
Vysotskiy said the ministry had slightly increased the 2023 wheat crop forecast to 17 million tons from the previous 16.6 million tons thanks to a wet spring.
“About 9 million tons from the new crop could be exported (in 2023/24), but given that there are carryover stocks, wheat exports in the new marketing year could be 11-12 million tons,” Vysotskiy said. – Reuters
