The Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture has further lowered the expected export figures for corn and wheat. Planned land transport via Poland and Lithuania is barely getting off the ground due to high extra costs and insufficient infrastructure.
Ukrainian farmers are struggling at the western border to export their corn, wheat, and sunflower oil by train wagons, trucks, and river transport. According to a new report released Wednesday, not much is reaching international markets through Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Only small quantities of corn and sunflower oil cross the borders, while virtually no wheat exports do, as the Russian military continues to block the use of Ukraine's southern sea ports. The Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture now predicts that the country will be able to export only 17 million tons of corn this season, nearly half less than under normal circumstances.
Ukraine says it managed to ship a few hundred thousand tons of corn out of the country in March and expects exports in April to be just over 500,000 tons, but these forecasts are far below normal levels when Panamax vessels were allowed to dock freely at the port of Odessa until the beginning of this year.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture states that it originally expected to export 9.6 million tons of wheat in the first half of this year, but that number has now been reduced to 2.3 million tons, almost entirely shipped before the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Wheat exports dropped to almost zero in March, and the ministry predicts they will remain near zero over the next three months. The pre-war forecast for this season was 25.3 million tons.
The new report confirms that very little grain has been transported out of Ukraine since the start of the war. Last week there were already reports about 'stuck' grain transport at Polish train transfer stations. Transporting grain and sunflower oil through Romania and Poland also entails very high transport costs, partly due to a lack of infrastructure.