Experts elaborate the prospects of the Black Sea grain in the 2018/19 season at GRAIN UKRAINE Conference 2018

On September 7-8, in Odessa experts of GRAIN UKRAINE international conference will talk about the prospects of the Black Sea grain in the 2018/19 season.

As noted by Matt Ammermann, Risk Manager and Vice President of FCM Division in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region of INTL FCStone Financial Inc. (USA), the trade conflict between the United States and China promotes the growth of Ukrainian grain export. Although China is the world's largest producer of wheat, they import about 4 million tons of this grain annually. And when supplies from the US declined it opened up new opportunities for Ukraine.

"China is still extremely sensitive to the price, so the price issue can help strengthen Ukraine's position in Asian markets, where it has already made a good showing," he noted.

According to the International Grains Council, in the 2017/18 season, the share of Black Sea wheat in the international market grew to 37%, exceeding the share of the United States and Canada.

The EU remains a significant importer of Ukraine products, especially corn.

"The EU is currently having some weather issues that will likely increase their import demand from Ukraine, so even if China shows an increasing demand for the Ukrainian corn, the EU trade flows will remain there to compete against. China is also likely to try to source other proteins from the Black Sea to help offset the U.S. soy, but in reality the Black Sea remains the world’s largest sunoil exporter and as such increased soybean plantings/economics will have to compete highly with sunflower economics — which in the short term seem like a very hard task. Sunflowers remain one of the most profitable crops for farmers in Ukraine," Matt Ammermann emphasizes.

The topic of Ukrainian export potential at GRAIN UKRAINE will be presented by Olga Trofimtseva, Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Deputy Minister for European Integration. According to her, for several years now Ukraine has been harvesting more than 60 million tons of grain, and for the last 7 years, the export of this product has increased almost threefold.

"I do not want to make hasty conclusions, but we expect that this year's results will be no worse. The harvesting of early grain and leguminous crops is continuing, 14.72 million tons of grain has already been harvested by the middle of July with a yield rate of 3.09 t/ha," Olga Trofimtseva noted.

Also, the conference participants will discuss the infrastructure issues of Ukraine, climate change and new markets for the Black Sea grain.

Registration: www.grain-ukraine.com, forum@ideasfirst.info.