Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture held its monthly grain
market working group with representatives from the grain trade to discuss the
latest agreement on exports.
Deputy Minister Elena Kovaleva reported preliminary
estimates for 2016/2017 marketing year is expected to be a new
record for general grain production at 64.2mmt with an export capacity of
40.2mmt.
Members of the working group agreed on the current Memorandum of Understanding and provided information on further exports, primarily
corn.
The Deputy Minister said that "we are ready to consider
revision in exports of grain and corn upwards” and proposed returning to this issue
in January and February when revised corn crop data would be available.
Considering the Ministry reported the corn harvest was 77%
finished over a month ago it now seems odd they need to wait until January or February to get a proper handle on how much
corn is available for export.
As of December 2016, exports of wheat in the current
marketing year are estimated at 11.0mmt which is 66.5% of the 16.5mmt recorded
in the MoU, barley at 4.2mmt or 74.8% from 5.6mmt and corn at 5.8mmt or
33.7% from 17.2mmt.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agricultural
and market participants is a voluntary agreement to set the amount of grain available
for export to guarantee food security in Ukraine.