Ukrainian grain exports have already exceeded last season's level and reached 16 million tonnes thanks to large corn sales, Ukraine's state service for food safety said on Thursday. Ukraine has said it planned to harvest 64 million tonnes of grain this year versus 61.3 million in 2017 and the agriculture ministry has said exports could rise to 42.5 million tonnes in the 2018/19 July-June season from 39.4 million last season.
The service said Ukraine had already exported 4 million tonnes of corn compared with 2.2 million tonnes in the same period last season, while wheat shipments decreased to 8.7 million tonnes from 9 million. Grains, vegetable oils and oilseeds dominate Ukrainian agricultural exports.
Ukraine has almost completed its 2018 grain harvest, threshing 65.4 million tonnes of grain in bunker weight from 96 percent of the sown area. Bunker weight is 5 to 7 percent higher than clean weight. The harvest includes 30.2 million tonnes of corn, 25.1 million tonnes of wheat and 7.5 million tonnes of barley. Farmers have also completed the sunflower harvest at around 13.7 million tonnes of sunseed.