UGA: Expectations of a 42% decrease in the wheat harvest in Ukraine this year

Ukraine’s wheat harvest in 2022 is likely to fall to 19.2 million tons from 33 million tons in 2021, but lower exports will push stocks to record highs, the Ukrainian Grain Traders Union (UGA) said on Wednesday.

Ukrainian officials and analysts said that hostilities in many areas may make harvesting impossible, but the union did not officially give a specific reason for the decline.

The union added that corn production may also drop to 26.1 million tons from 37.6 million tons in 2021, while barley production may drop to 6.6 million tons from 10.1 million tons.

The union expected that Ukraine could export 10 million tons of wheat and 15 million tons of corn, but the current export capacity could not exceed 18 million tons for the whole season.