Ukraine’s grain exports fall 10.3% in March to 5.2 mlnT

Ukraine’s grain exports fell to around 5.2 million metric tons in March from 5.8 million tons in February, agriculture ministry data showed on Monday.
The ministry gave no explanation for the decrease.
However, the UCAB Ukrainian farm business association in a statement linked the decline to Russian forces shelling southern Ukraine, which interrupted operations at seaports, and to Polish protesters blocking of land exports.
Ukraine’s grain exports in the 2023/24 July-June marketing season have fallen to around 34.9 million tons from 38 million a year earlier, the data showed.
Exports so far this season have included 13.8 million tons of wheat, 18.8 million tons of corn and 1.96 million tons of barley.
The UCAB said a total of 7.2 million tons of agricultural products were exported from Ukraine in March, 10.2% less than a month earlier.
Last month’s volume also included 445,300 tons of oilseeds and 651,100 tons of vegetable oils, it said.
Apart from the disruption caused by shelling and protests, the UCAB said additional factors for the March drop included large export volumes in previous months, reducing carry-over stocks and low prices on the global market for all types of grains and oilseeds.
Ukraine has traditionally exported around 95% of its grain via its deep water Black Sea ports.
The Ukrainian government expects a harvest of 81.3 million tons of grain and oilseeds in 2023, with a 2023/24 exportable surplus of about 50 million tons.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Barbara Lewis)