Recent years of pandemics, weather anomalies and war have led analysts to focus on short-term forecasts of grain price movements.

Now, for the first time in a long time, they are talking about the more distant future. In short, everyone's forecasts are based mainly on the situation in the Black Sea region and in the long term promise growth. According to some of them, the growth will be smooth and constant, while others are of the opinion that it will have a pronounced peak character.

Proponents of the second view argue that from now on, attacks on any ship or port infrastructure in the Black Sea will lead to a sharp rise in prices.

"This escalation raises risk and creates uncertainty," said Arif Hussain, chief economist at the UN's World Food Programme.

"A single wrong step by either country will have catastrophic consequences for the world, simply because there is no substitute for all the grain exported from Russia and Ukraine through the Black Sea," he said.

"We now know that we cannot rely solely on Ukraine for supplies of grain from the Black Sea," said Kona Hak, head of research at agricultural trading house ED&F Man.

"Grain prices will remain high and rise sharply every time a ship is hit or there is another attack on the ports. The region is too vital to the grain market to be ignored,” Haq concluded.

Other experts believe that blocking Ukraine's ability to export wheat, barley, corn and other grains opens up an opportunity for Moscow to take a bigger market share of the global grain market.

"Moscow sees an opportunity where if you take the Ukrainian share out of the market, there's a lot more left for Russia," said Anthony Rizzo, agriculture and fertilizer analyst at consultancy CRU.

"I see this as an opportunity for them not only to weaken Ukraine's financing (through less grain exports), but also to increase their own," Rizzo concluded.

Paul Hughes, chief agricultural economist at S&P Global, said the war would have a bigger impact on production levels in Ukraine than the failed Black Sea deal, limiting the quantities available for export to close to the volumes that left the country via alternative routes last year. year.

"When it comes to Ukraine's total export volume, we do not see the export corridor deal as a limiting factor. The limiting factor will be Ukraine's production, which is falling more and more every year," he said.

The failure of the grain initiative "is a significant shock to Ukrainian farmers," said Michael Magdowitz, senior commodity analyst at Rabobank. He said the grain deal gave Ukrainian farmers the confidence to sow "significant areas" last year, but now that the initiative has lapsed, they have limited options to sell the produce.

"Next year, Ukrainian farmers will sow much less, given the circumstances," Magdovits added. "It remains to be seen how this will affect the international market, but it should raise the long-term price floor because a low-cost supplier will leave the market."