News

Ukraine’s grain quality in question

An ag economist says questionable Ukrainian grain quality could continue to stall the country’s exports.

The University of Missouri’s Ben Brown points to Lebanon’s recent denial of a Ukrainian corn shipment after five months of the grain sitting in poor conditions.

“The fact that the shipment was denied just ramped up those concerns that, ‘hey, this is maybe not very good quality’,” Brown said. “If you’re an importer and you’re willing to take a risk on that, you could probably get it at a pretty steep discount.”

And he tells Brownfield if more shipments are canceled, new problems will arise.

“If you start seeing people back away from some of this old crop supply that Ukraine has sitting at their ports, what are you going to do with it to make way for new crop grains coming to the port,” he said.

Brown said global demand for U.S. products has been soft lately, but Ukraine’s logistic and supply issues could boost U.S. commodity demand.

No wheat shipments have left Ukraine yet, but some corn and sunflower products have been exported.

Brown made his comments on Brownfield’s recent Weekly Commodity Market Update.