Grain exports from Ukraine in the first days of July, the first month of the new 2023/24 July-June season, amounted to 34,000 tonnes, or 50% more than in the same period in 2022, the country's agriculture ministry said in Monday.
However, the facts show that the country is increasingly moving away from the results it had before the start of the war.
According to the latest forecasts from the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), domestic wheat production is expected to fall to its lowest level in 12 years, and exports are expected to hit an 11-year low.
The FAS now sees output falling to 17.5 million tonnes in the 2023-24 marketing year, down almost 50% from a record 33 million tonnes in 2021-22.
Wheat exports are forecast to fall to 10.5 million tonnes, a significant drop from the announced 16 million in 2022-23, and well below the record 18.8 million in 2021-22.
However, the 2023-24 forecast could be revised to even lower levels if Russia withdraws from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which currently underpins Ukraine's grain exports.
Either way, to date the Ukrainian ministry has reported that exports in the new season so far include 9,000 tonnes of wheat and 25,000 tonnes of maize. Agricultural exports for the entire 2022/23 season amounted to almost 49 million tonnes, remaining close to the previous season's level of 48.4 million tonnes.
The UCAB business association reported that a total of 3.8 million tonnes of grain and 513,500 tonnes of vegetable oil were exported in June, the last month of the previous marketing year.
Almost half of the volume (2 million tonnes) was transported abroad from deep-sea Black Sea ports under a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey last July to address the global food crisis.
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