Ukraine will have 7 million tonnes of wheat in stocks at the beginning of the next marketing season in July, the Agriculture Ministry said on Wednesday. "Rollover stocks will be at the level of 7 million tonnes, including 5 million tonnes of milling wheat," First Deputy Agriculture Minister Mykola Bezugly told reporters.
Ukraine's wheat stocks totalled 2.6 million tonnes at the beginning of the 2011/12 season, 1.2 million tonnes in 2010/11 and 1.07 million tonnes in 2009/10. Ukraine, which consumes 12 million tonnes of wheat per season, harvested 22.3 million tonnes of the grain in 2011 but exported about 3.5 million in the first eight months of this season. In 2012 the harvest of wheat could be 14 million tonnes. Traders and agriculture officials have said Ukrainian-origin wheat could not compete with cheaper wheat from Russia and Argentina. Ukrainian officials said last month they had asked grain traders to focus their activity on exports of corn and barley but not on wheat.
Local media also reported that traders and the government had agreed to limit exports of wheat due to the threat of future shortages following weather damage to winter crop plantings. Ukraine exported 366,000 tonnes of wheat in January and 340,000 tonnes in February.
But on Wednesday traders said the government was promising to encourage them to sell wheat abroad, because of excessive ending stocks. "There is no limit. They (the Farm Ministry) encourage us to export wheat," said Volodymyr Klymenko, the head of the Ukrainian Grain Association which unites Ukrainian and foreign grain traders.
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