Wheat planting and exports grow amid the war in Ukraine

Planting data released until the end of November pointed to an increase in planted area, while soil moisture remains close to the 5-year average. Snow cover has decreased recently, but forecasts point to a low risk of winterkill. Ukrainian exports have also somewhat surprised the market. In December, Ukraine shipped 4.8M tonnes of food, mainly grains, from its Black Sea ports, surpassing for the first time the volumes achieved through the UN-promoted grain corridor. However, the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea could change this scenario. In recent reports we have seen that, despite some risks, the main producers in the northern hemisphere have generally brought several bearish fundamentals to the wheat futures markets. In this report, we will address another one of these cases: Ukraine. “Looking at various indicators of the Ukrainian harvest, everything points to another harvest of more than 20M mt. Starting with the planted area, the data available so far leads us to ...