Over the course of the three day Fast Markets Global Grain event in Geneva, UCAB and its partners identified close to 80 million tonnes of grain and oilseed export pipeline from international buyers located in 27 countries.

On November 12, NGO “Association “UCAB” together with the USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA), as part of Global Grain Geneva 2024 held a seminar “Grain Export: Expanding Sales Channels & New Opportunities from Ukraine”. During the event, attendees discussed recent changes in Ukrainian grain exports,  trends in global markets, and potential opportunities for grain industry development.

Thomas O'Callaghan, USAID ERA’s Supply Chain and Export Logistics Lead, congratulated the seminar participants and noted the importance of developing cooperation to expand export opportunities. "USAID ERA is one of a few implementing partners in Ukraine on different types of projects. We're mainly focused on promoting export capacity enhancement and improving logistics capability within Ukraine, as we believe this is a promising area”.

Alex Lissitsa, President of UCAB and Chairman of the Board of IMC, shared that more than 60% of all exports from Ukraine are related to agri-products, which makes the agri-sector a vital component of the country's economic security. He continued, “The importance of agriculture is growing year by year. Therefore, Ukrainian agribusinesses, despite the full-scale war, see more urgency than ever to support Ukrainian agriculture and Ukrainian exports on world markets. Ukrainian agrarians firmly believe in the country's future and are actively looking for new opportunities to develop infrastructure that will ensure the export of Ukrainian products throughout Europe, already adapting the agricultural sector to European standards”.

Oleksandra Avramenko, Head of UCAB European Integration Committee, also sees one of the main tasks as pushing Ukrainian agricultural products into the global and European arenas. She notes, “Although Ukraine's ability to export agricultural products changed significantly in the spring of 2022 due to the blockade of traditional export routes, Ukrainian companies continued to export by developing alternative logistics routes. Overall, during the 32 months of the war (from March 2022 to October 2024), Ukrainian agribusinesses exported 160 million tons of grains, oilseeds, and processed products from Ukraine. The structure of exporters has changed during the full-scale war. In 2021, 20 exporters provided 90% of the exported agro-commodities volume from Ukraine, but in 2023, the top 20 exporting companies accounted for only 27.6% of export volumes. The export volume through the Danube ports significantly increased from the pre-war export level of 1 million tons of exports per year, to the highest level of 2.4 million tons in August 2023. Due to the blockade of sea routes and difficulties forming new export routes, in the war’s first two years, the share of the  total agricultural exports from Ukraine increased to the EU, although countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia are also on the list of destinations for Ukrainian agri-products. However, with the reopening of the Black Sea ports, export volumes to the EU are gradually decreasing, and therefore, according to the results of 2024, we expect the share of traditional markets of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa to grow”.

In addition, according to Oleksandra Avramenko, since Ukraine opened its own sea corridor to improve exports, significant efforts have been made to:

• digitalize plant quarantine services;
• facilitate international trade due to increased electronic document flow;
• improve phytosanitary procedures.

At the end of the seminar, 16 Ukrainian agricultural grain exporters gave their pitch, including Agro-Region, LLC “Chernihiv Industrial Milk Company” (IMC), LLC “Baryshevska Grain Company”, Astarta-Kyiv, LLC “Firm Eridon”, LLC “UGTC TRADE”, LLC “TAS Agro”, LLC “Agrochemtechnology”, Continental Farmers Group, LLC “Risoil Ukraine”, LLC “LNZ Export”, OKKO GROUP, LLC “AGROTRADE PRODUCTION”, LLC “TRADEX AGRI”, LLC “Hermes-Trading”, and Agroprosperis. Company representatives explained their products, storage and export opportunities, shipment size ranges, transportation options, and export logistics routes.

We thank all seminar participants and speakers for fruitful discussions and effective interactions developing useful contacts and new partnerships. We hope partnerships continue to develop further, resulting in new markets and common Ukrainian and European grain export logistics.