Ukraine corn exports seen falling sharply in June, producers union says

Ukrainian corn exports are set to fall to one million metric tons in June from two million tons in May, as Ukraine-origin corn is uncompetitive compared to its American equivalent, producers’ union UAC said on Wednesday.

Ukraine is a traditional corn grower and exporter and exports are expected at around 22 million tons in the 2024/25 season.

“In the current conditions, we cannot compete with American suppliers on the European market,” UAC said in a statement, adding that U.S.-origin corn was traded at $230 per tons versus $256-$260 per ton for Ukrainian corn.

“Ukrainian corn is sold in small batches of 2,000 or 5,000 tons mainly to Greece and Cyprus. For comparison, the U.S. exports only large volumes of 25,000 tons or more,” the union said.

UAC noted that Ukraine already had limited volumes of corn available for exports in remaining months of this season and it did not exceed 1.5 million tons.

Ukraine exported 20.6 million tons of corn as of June 2, official data showed.

The union said corn prices would gradually decline to around $215 later in June and from the second half of the month demand could fall and the market would focus on the new harvest.

Ukraine harvested 27 million tons of corn in 2024 but the crop may decrease to 26 million tons in 2025 mainly due to unfavourable weather.

Farm minister Vitaliy Koval told Reuters on Tuesday that Ukrainian grain harvest may decrease by 10 per cent to around 51 million tons, according to the most pessimistic estimates.

Tags: exports, corn, Greece, Cyprus, Ukraine