Ukraine’s corn market faces crisis amid excess wet grain and overloaded dryers

A tense situation is developing in Ukraine’s corn market due to an oversupply of wet grain and overloaded drying facilities, Brooklyn-Trading CEO Vitalii Rachun told Latifundist.com in a comment.

“After what happened on the corn and barley markets in August–September, we decided not to play long-term anymore. Last summer, we couldn’t even collect 500 tons of corn — that was a clear signal,” Rachun said.

According to him, this corn season is a real game of roulette. The market is flooded with offers of high-moisture corn. A large share of the crop still remains in the fields, dryers are operating at full capacity, and farmers without their own drying facilities simply have nowhere to take the wet grain. Some relief might come with frost, which could slightly improve the situation.

“Each season brings new surprises — in recent years, everyone forgot about dryers, but now we’re seeing lines forming for anything capable of drying grain,” he noted.

Rachun added that prices for dry corn are unjustifiably high due to limited supply, while the large volumes available on the market have elevated moisture levels — sometimes up to 25%. Such grain requires step-by-step processing to prevent overheating and quality loss, which increases production costs.

“This situation definitely doesn’t work in our favor, given record corn harvests in North America, weakening demand in Asian markets, and, as a result, rising competition in our traditional Mediterranean destinations,” Rachun emphasized.

Tags: grain drying, Ukraine, corn, prices