Torrential rains across western, northern and central Ukrainian regions have significantly slowed the harvest, causing a drop in export rates and a potential slide in rapeseed output this year, producers’ union UAC said.

The weekly report from Ukraine’s largest union of agricultural producers said the pace of harvesting early grains and oilseeds was more than three times slower than a year earlier.

Forecasters are predicting more rain this week, which means the harvest will be suspended again.

Ukraine has already started threshing wheat, barley and rapeseed.

UAC said farmers had harvested about 1 million metric tons of rapeseed as of July 25, down from 3.3 million tons at the same stage last year. They had also harvested about 7 million tons of wheat, down from 17 million tons a year earlier.

“The rains that will cover the west and north this week will cause harvesting to stop,” UAC said.

Rain-hit rapeseed yields have prompted the market to reduce harvest forecasts to between 2.4 million and 2.5 million tons for 2025, down from a previous projection of 2.8 million to 2.9 million tons.

LOCUSTS, SMALLER EXPORTS

While the western and central regions are experiencing heavy rainfall, the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine are suffering from drought and high temperatures, which could reduce sunflower and corn harvests and may have caused an outbreak of locusts.

Officials and producers say that a massive locust invasion is threatening sunflower and other crops in Ukraine’s southern regions, largely caused by the war against Russia’s invasion that makes it impossible to use traditional pest control methods.

Swarms of locusts are covering roads, fields and bushes in Zaporizhzhia region and farmers say the insects have destroyed up to a third of their sunflower crops.

Delays in harvesting and a possible decline in yields have already led to a slowdown in exports, with producers saying that not all contracted volumes have been shipped to buyers.

UAC said that up to 300,000 tons of rapeseed were contracted for export in July, but actual deliveries are unlikely to exceed 100,000 tons.

“Contracts for the supply of about 1 million tons of rapeseed were signed for July-August, but the continuing weather risks are negatively affecting the harvest, resulting in very low supply,” UAC said, adding that traders have large sales volumes and there are serious doubts whether supply will be sufficient in August.

UAC expects rapeseed export prices to rise to $595 a ton carriage paid to (CPT) for delivery mid-August, up from $550 on July 25.

The wheat market is also complicated by delayed harvesting and concern over crop quality while yields could be among the lowest in recent years.

The union said that about 3.4 million tons of wheat were contracted for export for July-August, including 1.9 million tons in August, but July shipments would not exceed 550,000 tons.
Source: Reuters