Although this year’s production is expected to fall by one-third, Ukraine’s Grain Association still expects an annual harvest of 26m tonnes of maize, 19m tonnes of wheat, 7m tonnes of barley and 13m tonnes of oilseeds
, road and river routes can carry less than 2m tonnes per month. This means stockpiles are running up, and the problem is about to get worse. In June the wheat planted in winter turns firm and golden. But one-fifth of Ukraine’s grain elevators, or storage facilities, have been damaged in attacks, or lie in Russian-occupied territories. And the country already has a backlog of more than 20m tonnes of trapped grain from last season, says Taras Vysotsky, the deputy agriculture minister.
Farmers in southern Ukraine have already started to harvest winter crops; those in other regions will follow soon. Although this year’s production is expected to fall by one-third, Ukraine’s Grain Association, an industry body, still expects an annual harvest of 26m tonnes of maize, 19m tonnes of wheat, 7m tonnes of barley and 13m tonnes of oilseeds. Some farmers would rather hoard grain in the hope thatthan see expensive transit to Poland or Romania eat into their margins.
Crops that are not stored could rot or be stolen. To avoid that, farmers are scrambling to secure silo bags—long polyurethane sleeves that can hold around 200 tonnes of grain each. Mr Vysotsky estimates that around 50,000 would be needed to take all the excess. The government is also ordering mobile storage facilities, which can be set up in fields to shelter grain from the elements and pests. Smaller producers, meanwhile, are cutting deals to rent space in warehouses.
Such remedies can anyway only be partial—and expensive. Anticipating higher logistics costs, some Ukrainian farmers are rethinking their mix of crops in favour of more profitable varieties. Bogdan Kostetsky, founder of Barva Invest, an agricultural consultancy near Kyiv, says farmers have already replaced around one-third of their low-margin maize with rape and sunflower seeds. Others may decide to sit out the next season altogether.
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