Export of Ukrainian grain this year
At the beginning of the second decade of December and since the beginning of the current marketing year 2024/25, Ukraine exported 19.089 million tons of grain and leguminous crops. During this time, 715 thousand tons have been shipped since the beginning of the month alone. The press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine reports that as of December 13 last year, the total volume of shipments amounted to 14.697 million tons, of which 1.6 million tons were shipped in December. This marketing year, exports of all major crops exceed the previous year’s figures. 9.13 million tons of wheat, 1.867 million tons of barley and 7.776 million tons of corn have already been exported. Total exports of Ukrainian flour from the beginning of the season to December 11 are estimated at 34.1 thousand tons. The greatest load falls on Ukrainian ports, which this year have transshipped 90 million tons of cargo, of which more than 60% was grain. Grain sampler plays an important role in the agricultural sector, ensuring accurate grain sampling for quality analysis. This equipment is used at elevators, granaries and grain processing plants to determine moisture content, impurity content and other grain quality indicators. The use of a sampler allows farmers to quickly make decisions regarding the transportation, storage and processing of grain, which helps to increase production efficiency and preserve product quality. In total, 56.1 million tons of grain were transshipped through seaports during this period, compared to 39.4 million tons in 2023. In November alone, Ukrainian seaports processed 7.6 million tons of cargo. Demand for Ukrainian wheat remains high, especially in Spain, where last week agreements were signed for the supply of feed wheat at a price of $237-238 per ton for delivery in January. Analysis by the agricultural cooperative PUSK shows that competition with Russian wheat, which dominates the markets of Algeria, Tunisia and the Middle East due to an aggressive pricing policy, remains significant. However, experts believe that the situation may change in 2025. According to their forecasts, from February to June 2025, Russia will be able to export only 11 million tons of grain due to the introduction of an export quota, which is significantly less than 28-29 million tons in the previous season. An additional factor of influence is the unsatisfactory condition of a third of Russian winter crops.
It is expected that foreign exchange earnings from agricultural exports from Ukraine in 2024 will reach approximately $24.5 billion. Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitaliy Koval notes that this indicator should become the second largest since Ukraine’s independence. He links the growth of exports to the intensification of agricultural production, which allowed increasing the revenue from the sale of agricultural products abroad. As an example, the minister cites a farm in the Kyiv region, which received 31 tons of corn per hectare on irrigated land, while the average figure for Ukraine is up to 7 tons per hectare on non-irrigated fields. The head of the parliamentary committee on agrarian policy and land relations, Oleksandr Gaidu, notes that in 2024 the agricultural sector will account for 11% of GDP and about 60% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. In 2023, these figures amounted to $22.9 billion or 61% of all Ukrainian earnings, and in 2021 – $27.7 billion or about 40%. Thus, Ukraine has come close to the second highest agricultural export figure in history and may end the year with $24.5 billion in exports, which indicates the adaptation of farmers despite the loss of some territories due to the war. Market experts believe that in the current marketing season, Ukraine, together with the United States, will increase wheat exports. According to the USDA report for December, world trade will decrease by 1 million tons to 213.7 million tons. At the same time, the forecast for ending wheat stocks in the world has been increased to 257.88 million tons, and the estimate of the wheat harvest in Ukraine has remained unchanged – 22.9 million tons.