AgroVista Agro Holding has sent the first ship with 3rd class wheat of the new harvest to Greece, the next one with feed wheat is intended for Spain, the company’s press service reported.
“In this marketing year, taking into account the stoppage of the “grain corridor”, “AgroVista” returned to the work of logistics routes through the Danube corridor. Also due to the high load of the Danube direction and the temporary absence of the work of the “grain corridor” holding sells part of its products using other transport corridors – road, rail and river, delivering grain to the nearest ports of neighboring countries and buyers in the European Union,” – stated in the message.
According to information on the official website, in 2022/23 MY agroholding, using the “grain corridor”, the Danube corridor and transit routes to the EU countries, shipped for export more than 0.5 million tons of grain, which was sold in the countries of the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East, Turkey and Egypt.
“AgroVista” (formerly the group of companies “UkrAgroCom” and “Hermes Trading”) is an integrated agricultural corporation specializing in grain and oilseed crops, livestock, grain trading and sugar production. Its land bank is 80 thousand hectares.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiaries of AgroVista agroholding are businessmen and former MPs Anatoliy Kuzmenko and his son Serhiy Kuzmenko.
Ukraine has already harvested 12.5 million tons of wheat with record yields, but due to weather conditions 60% of the crop will be sold as fodder, which is twice as much as last year’s figure, according to the analytical cooperative “Pusk”, established within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Rada (VAR).
“The key problem of the new harvest was its low quality: due to weather conditions, the grain has a low protein content. Most exporting countries also have problems with the quality of grain,” analysts said.
According to their information, the volume of feed grain in the season-2023 may amount to 60% of the new harvest. In previous years, this figure was at the level of 30%, and the remaining 70% was food grain.
Ukraine will get no more than 40% of high-protein wheat in 2023, which will affect prices.
“The spread between fodder and high-protein wheat is already $15-18/ton, in the future it may exceed $20/ton,” experts noted.
The current season will be problematic with the supply of food grain worldwide, stated the WAR and added that a lot of feed grain will be produced by France, Germany and the Russian Federation, which are experiencing problems with grain quality.
“Those who have high-protein wheat are selling to Lithuania, to Germany, and at small ports the supply is low. If last season the markets were surplus, traders dictated prices, now we are moving to a deficit model. Farmers are not taking wheat to the ports, and prices will rise,” the analysts explained.
They reported that prices in Danube ports on the basis of CPT are $170-175/tonne, by the end of the week they are expected at $180/tonne, and by the end of August may exceed $200/tonne.
“World demand is just starting to grow, there will be news of quality problems in other regions as well,” predicted the CAP.
Food wheat in most regions of Ukraine is gradually becoming more expensive, for the week its price for 2 and 3 class amounted to 5500-6500 UAH/ton and 5400-6300 UAH/ton, which is by 100-400 UAH higher than last week’s figures, reports analytical agency “APK-Inform”.
“As of July 26, processors predominantly fix demand prices for wheat of 2nd and 3rd class within 5500-6500 UAH/tonne and 5400-6300 UAH/tonne SRT respectively, which is 100-400 UAH/t higher than the end of last week,” analysts noted.
According to their information, prices are supported by insufficient supply of grain of new harvest due to restrained sales by agrarians and slowdown of harvesting campaign in some regions of the country due to rains.
In addition, market participants often report that wheat of the new crop is closer to feed condition in terms of quality. Locally in the central region of the country there is an increased share of grain infected with sooty mold, which also affects the gradual rise in prices, stated APK-Inform.
NASA Harvest (Food Security and Agriculture Program) analysts, based on satellite analysis, forecast total wheat production in Ukraine in 2023 marketing year at the level of 25-26.5 million tons, of which 21-22 million tons will be harvested on the territory controlled by Kiev, another 4.1-4.4 million tons – on the temporarily occupied territories, the official website of NASA Harvest reports. According to satellite analysis, wheat yields will average 4.27 tons/ha for the whole of Ukraine, in particular 4.53 tons/ha on the controlled territory and 3.3 tons/ha on the occupied territory.
According to NASA Harvest, wheat acreage for the whole country is estimated to be between 5.8-6.2 million hectares, of which 4.6-4.9 million hectares in the controlled territories, 1.2-1.3 million hectares in the temporarily occupied territories.
“Overall, this year’s wheat production estimate is close to last year’s due to a smaller sown area and higher yields compared to last year, which will be slightly below the five-year (pre-war) average of 27.9 million tons. This assumes that all the wheat sown will be harvested and that satellites cannot provide information on who harvested the wheat and whether Ukraine will benefit economically from its fertile farmland,” NASA Harvest summarized.
Source: https://nasaharvest.org/news/farming-warzone-nasa-harvest-releases-satellite-based-ukraine-wheat-production-estimates
Astarta” agricultural holding, the largest sugar producer in the country, has started harvesting wheat and rapeseed in Poltava region. The harvesting process in the Western region will start in the middle of July, the press service of the holding announced on Facebook on Friday.
According to the message, Astarta plans to harvest early grains from an area of almost 57,000 hectares in 2023, including winter wheat from 43,000 hectares.
“Despite the existing challenges – more than 400 mobilized workers, a serious increase in the cost of production resources, the work in the mode of constant air rapture, the possibility of overlapping reaping of winter rape and wheat – we have qualitatively and timely prepared for harvesting. We carried out repairs, the necessary amount of agricultural equipment is ready, we have good condition of crops and good yield potential. And most importantly, the people – there are preserved and well prepared teams “- said the director of agricultural production Vadim Skrypnyk.
Astarta” said that they managed to sell almost the entire harvest last year, so grain elevators of the holding are ready to receive the new harvest. During the season of 2023, the harvesting will be accompanied by the implementation of digital products AgriChain, in particular the new module of AgriChain Logistics, aimed at the automation and efficient management of all processes.
“Together with agronomics, logistics, elevator and commercial services of “Astarta” we developed a mathematical model that comprehensively solves the transport task and allows making the most optimal plan of product placement on the company’s own and third-party elevators or, if necessary, involve reserve storage options,” – explained AgriChain Director Natalia Bogacheva, emphasizing the importance of this issue during the harvesting campaign.
According to her information, the IT-division reinforced the control system of collection, transportation and delivery to the place of harvest unloading, and it also brought the transportation routing to a new level, the system of access to loading trucks via NFC technology, the digital control system “friend-or-foe”, the notification system and rapid response to abnormal situations on the routes.
During the current harvesting campaign it is also planned to implement hourly dispatching of product delivery from the field to the storage locations through the work orders system, which will help to avoid queues, idle time, increase vehicle turnover and choose the best route.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It consists of six sugar factories, farms with land bank of 220 thousand hectares, dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and biogas complex.
Agroholding increased its net profit in 2021 14 times compared to 2020 – up to EUR 122.5 mln, EBITDA – 1.8 times, up to EUR 201.5 mln. Its revenue increased by 18.2% up to EUR 491.35 mln, one third of which (EUR 170 mln) was generated by sugar production and sales.
Wheat exports from Ukraine in the upcoming 2023/24 marketing year (MY) will be 10 million tons compared to 15 million tons in the current 2022/23 MY, while corn will be 16.5 million tons compared to 25.5 million tons, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts.
In its report, it is said that this is due to a smaller harvest and reduction of export stocks.
In addition, the USDA expects barley exports from Ukraine to decrease by 0.1 million tons in the upcoming MY – to 2.3 million tons.
Compared with the forecast of a month ago, the US Department of Agriculture improved its estimate of wheat export for this year by 0.5 million tons – up to 15 million tons, explaining it by better-than-expected performance of “grain corridor” and “lines of solidarity”.
As for the upcoming harvest, the USDA expects Ukraine’s wheat production this year to drop to 16.5 million tons from 20.9 million tons last year and 33.01 million tons in 2021.
He estimates that the harvest of other grains will fall to 28.67 million tons from 34.06 million tons last year and 53.51 the year before.
In particular, corn will be harvested 22 million tons compared to 27 million tons a year ago and 42.13 million tons in 2021, barley – respectively 5.9 million tons against 6.18 million tons and 9.92 million tons, oats – 350 thousand tons against 390 thousand tons and 478 thousand tons.
