Ukraine’s rapeseed market in new 2018/19 season: optimism is justified

The Ukrainian rapeseed market has entered the new 2018/19 marketing year. Have all the expectations of 2017/18 come true? Running ahead of the story, it is safe to say that the past season was generally successful.

The 2017/18 rapeseed crop in Ukraine hit a four-year high. This enabled all market participants to regain their positions after the bad harvest season of 2016/17. So, farmers harvested over 2.3 MMT of rapeseed, i.e. almost twice as much as in the 2016/17 season.

The volume of rapeseed processed in Ukraine grew to 190 KMT in the 2017/18 season. However, in view of the crop increase and active export shipments, its share in the crop dropped to 8.3% against 13.7% a year ago.

Ukraine supplied 2122 KMT of rapeseed to foreign markets in the 2017/18 season, having reversed a downward trend in its exports. This tend was seen in the previous three seasons because of rapeseed production growth on the one hand and a large share of domestic processing (12-20%) on the other hand.

The 2017/18 season witnessed not only an increased size of traditional markets but also the resumption of shipments to countries such as Pakistan, the UAE, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia and Hungary.

The outlook for the new 2018/19 season looks still more optimistic than the past marketing year 2017/18.