The ministry forecasts Ukraine could export about 29.6 million metric tons of agricultural products in 2026-27, roughly 54% below its previous estimate of 64.4 million metric tons. Wheat exports are forecast to fall about 53%, to 8.3 million metric tons.
“Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain shippers, with the farm sector generating more than half of the country’s export revenue last year,” Bloomberg noted.
“Russian attacks on the port of Odesa, which usually handles about 90% of its grain shipments, are choking off those flows, while alternative routes via the Danube are limited by a drought that’s left water levels in the river at record lows.”
A new harvest is quickly filling Ukrainian storage. Current storage capacity of roughly 59 million metric tons could be fully loaded by early November, and by the end of autumn the country could face a storage deficit of about 11 million metric tons.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced subsidized loans for agricultural producers and said the government is preparing additional measures to expand storage capacity. Ukraine has also asked the European Commission for EUR220 million in grant aid to subsidize interest on loans for small and medium-sized farms.
Kyiv and Bucharest agreed to increase shipments through
Romania’s port of Constanta, and Ukrainian Railways is seeking additional
transit routes. Some grain shipments have already been redirected through
Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary, but those routes cannot fully make up for the
lost capacity of the Black Sea ports.