In Ukraine, the harvest is coming to the end and the need to sell products is becoming increasingly urgent. Executive director of the First Ukrainian Agricultural Cooperative Oleksandr Buiukli spoke about the opportunities which were opened for export by the Istanbul Agreement, the results of the harvesting campaign, and price expectations on the market.

The "grain corridor" started its work, what advantages did Ukraine receive?

Since the beginning of August, our deep-sea ports have been unblocked: Pivdennyi, Odesa, Chornomorsk. The first week, all traders carefully watched how this mechanism would work in wartime, but with the arrival of the first empty vessel for loading, everyone began to actively purchase grain at these ports. Since the beginning of August, more than 1.3 million tons of grain have been exported from Odesa ports. Of course, the opening of the Black Sea ports, together with the Danube ports and the western land borders, significantly improves Ukraine's opportunities to export agricultural products. This will lead to a reduction in logistics costs, and hence, to an improvement in the price that the farmer will receive for his grain. This has already had a positive effect on sunflower processing, the opening of new ways of selling oil contributed to the growth of purchase prices for raw materials.

However, even these capacities are not enough at this stage. The impossibility of shipping through the blocked ports of Mykolaiv, Kherson and the Azov Sea will lead to the rapid formation of queues and traffic jams near the deep-sea ports of Odesa, especially with the start of the corn harvesting campaign.

What opportunities did the unblocking of the Odesa ports open for the "The First Ukrainian Agricultural Cooperative" cooperative?

Before the war, the cooperative sold agricultural products through traders, nowadays we have the opportunity to sell directly to counterparties located, for example, in Turkey and the Middle East.

Previously, our ability to trade directly was limited, as all the quotas in the port were taken by traders and worked out their positions very well. All the ports were overloaded, the ships were overloaded, there was high competition between grain traders. Therefore, in the pre-war time it was more profitable to deal with mediators: with large batches of agricultural products, we received the highest possible price. Currently, not all traders are back in business.

Nowadays, we trade through the Danube ports and the western borders, since the beginning of the war we have exported no less than 2 million tons of products. But it is very difficult to deliver grain to these directions.

So, we plan to work our way through the Odessa ports. That means, the main task is to find a ship and to ship grain directly to buyers.

What volumes will be the first batch?

Currently, the cooperative is not interested in forming large shipments to either the Danube or Odesa ports, this is a consequence of complex logistics. They are forced to break down batches for transportation by road and railway.

The access to the ships appeared a couple of weeks ago, when the ships left the port one by one. We have a potential opportunity to concentrate certain volumes in the Odesa port and try to deliver the first trial batch to the supplier, it will be about 20,000 tons.

What is more profitable for farmers nowadays: to sell grain or to keep it, what should be a fair price?

We feel a lack of working capital, so we are forced to sell part of the products. But we will hold back sales due to low prices. Purchase prices for wheat are too low, taking into account the price of fertilizers and other cost components. The fair price for wheat should be at least UAH10,000 per ton. We would like to wait for a good ratio of expense and the cost of grain.

What is the grain yield in "The First Ukrainian Agricultural Cooperative" cooperative?

The grain yield is at the level of the last year’s. The ratio of food and feed wheat in favor of high flour varieties. The barley, as well as the content of oil in rapeseed, are also higher compared to the previous year’s. For corn, we expect yield indicators to be no less than last year.

Food-grade wheat is about at least 60% of the crop and that is great. Given the drought in the EU, we can expect food wheat prices to increase in October-November. A good yield and quality of wheat was achieved thanks to favorable weather conditions.