Ukraine’s grain exports have totalled 2.98 million metric tons so far in the 2023/24 July-June season, Agriculture Ministry data showed on Friday.

The ministry gave no comparative figures for the same date a year earlier but said the shipments were at 2.34 million tons as of Aug. 12, 2022.

Exports have been affected since Russia quit a United Nations-backed grain deal last month but the ministry’s data did not give a breakdown on exports since the deal collapsed.

The ministry said Ukraine had exported 701,000 tons of grain in August so far.
The total volume of grain exports so far this season included 1.42 million tons of corn, 1.18 million tons of wheat and 364,000 tons of barley.

Exports for the entire 2022/23 season were almost 49 million tons, exceeding the previous season’s 48.4 million tons.

Most of the volume was exported via deep Black Sea ports under the deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July to tackle a global food crisis worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and blockade of Ukrainian ports.

Russia left the deal on July 17 after saying its demands to ease sanctions on its own grain and fertilizer exports had not been met. Moscow also complained that not enough grain had reached poor countries.

A major grain grower and exporter, Ukraine’s grain output dropped to about 55 million tons in clean weight in calendar 2022, down from a record 86 million tons in 2021.

The ministry has said the crop could total around 56 million tons of grain in 2023

Source: Reuters reported by Pavel Polityuk and edited by David Evans