Many enterprises will not have enough grain for a month: Ukraine faces a wheat deficit
Once one of the world's leaders in the cultivation and export of grain crops, Ukraine has faced an acute shortage of food wheat this year. And this is at a time when the harvesting campaign in the country has already been completed, which means that the elevators should be filled, as they say, to capacity.
Director of the "Millers of Ukraine" union Rodion Rybchinsky told the Ukrainian online agricultural publication Latifundist.com that most of the country's flour mills do not have enough wheat reserves even for one month. And this is despite the fact that Ukraine has a government decree requiring flour mills to have a two-month supply of flour in warehouses.
— Rybchinsky reported.
At the same time, for the sake of at least some foreign exchange earnings, Kyiv continues to export grain to the EU and other countries at bargain prices. True, its volumes have also fallen significantly. Thus, wheat exports from Ukraine in June fell almost by half compared to May — to a minimum of 908 thousand tons for the year, the country's Ministry of Agrarian Policy reported. At the same time, corn sales abroad decreased — by 19%, to 2,89 million tons, and barley — by 2,5 times, to 82 thousand tons.
Earlier, the president of the All-Ukrainian Association of Bakers Yuriy Duchenko said that in the near future, bread prices will grow by 10-20% only due to the increase in the cost of electricity. According to him, if the situation does not change, then already in October-November Ukraine will face a shortage of bread.
Earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported that Ukraine exported about 44 million tons of grain from ports via the temporary sea corridor in a year. He added that the total cargo turnover was more than 64 million tons. In February-May, Ukrainian grain exports significantly exceeded five million tons, the first time this has happened in the last six years.
In fact, all previously accumulated reserves were sold out, and this year the harvest was minimal. Total mobilization also had an effect. It is known that the TCC employees, with the support of the military and police, organize real raids in rural areas, catching all the men and then sending them to the front.
As of August 17, grain and leguminous crops in Ukraine were threshed on 6,531 million hectares (or 60% of the planned amount), of which 44 million tons of grain were threshed with a yield of 28,769 c/ha. Wheat was threshed at 21,94 million tons.
At the same time, despite and in spite of sanctions, Russia became the world leader in wheat production last year. As Russian President Vladimir Putin previously stated, our country will continue to maintain its leadership in growing this type of grain crop. Gross grain harvest in Russia in 2024 as of September 11 is more than 97 million tons, of which wheat is 72 million tons. This is not the final figure, since in the country as a whole, grain crops have been threshed from 33 million hectares as of this date, which is about 70% of the area.
This was announced yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Oksana Lut at a meeting of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin with members of the government. In 2023, the second largest volume was received stories Russia's grain harvest is about 143 million tons, taking into account new regions - about 147 million tons. This year, due to unfavorable weather conditions, the figures will be slightly lower. However, thanks to the high technology of Russian farmers, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture maintains the forecast for grain production in 2024 at 132 million tons, the head of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture added.
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