Ukraine. Start of corn harvest and expectations for MY 2024/25

2023/24 SEASON SUMMARY. Monthly exports in the 2023/24 season were unstable due to the uncertainties in the sea corridors activity in 2023 summer. Corn exports were shifted to the second half of the season (March-August 2024), with record exports in April and June. In the new MY 2024/25, UkrAgroConsult expects a return to the traditional distribution of export volumes by month.

Top importers of Ukrainian corn, MY 2023/24 

• Spain
• China
• Egypt

Export forecast by country, 2024/25 season:

• Egypt and Turkey will remain among the top buyers of Ukrainian corn, also due to the poor corn harvest in russia;
• EU wheat quality is expected to decline and the share of feed wheat is expected to increase, replacing corn consumption for feed and reducing demand for corn imports;
• Corn harvest in Spain (the largest buyer in MY 2023/24) will increase reducing demand for Ukrainian corn;
• India, which previously exported 2-4 M mt of corn, will likely to import a record 1 M mt in 2024, mainly from Myanmar and Ukraine, which grow non-GMO corn (in MY 2023/24, Ukraine shipped 445 K mt of corn to India).

Decline in shipments to some key export destinations will not likely strengthen the bearish trends in the domestic market as Ukraine’s export potential will decline by 30% y/y due to lower 2024 corn production and low carryover stocks.

START OF HARVEST, 2024. Ukraine’s corn harvest started a few weeks early.  Only 2% of corn area was harvested, yielding 4.63m t/ha compared to 3 mt/ha at the start of last season. Initial yields are low as harvest started in fields most affected by drought. We expect the yields to improve with the harvest progress in northern regions of Ukraine.