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Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has significantly disturbed global agricultural markets. This has created more uncertainty regarding the future availability of grains and oilseeds, and has added a layer of instability to already tense markets. The EU is largely self-sufficient for food, with a massive agri-food trade surplus, and the EU single market can once again be expected to prove its ability to absorb shocks. Nevertheless, there are some concerns around affordability due to high market prices and inflationary trends.
Proposed measures to increase the EU’s arable crops production will allow farmers to increase their sowing area for maize, sunflowers and protein crops. As a result, the 2022 EU harvest may be a very good one for cereals and for oilseeds, provided normal weather conditions prevail. EU cereal production is projected to reach 297.7 million tonnes for the 2022 harvest. Together with a reduced demand for feed due to lower pigmeat production and reduced use of cereals for biofuel, this could help to soften the impact the expected lack of grain exports from Ukraine may have on global markets.
Exports of cereals are expected to increase by 14% this marketing year (until end of June), largely driven by an additional 5.6 million tonnes of soft wheat compared to the previous season. This may increase further after the 2022 summer harvest, with net exports of EU cereals potentially increasing by almost 40% to 41.4 million tonnes from July 2022 to June 2023 (2022/23 marketing year).
Oilseed prices have skyrocketed since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with rapeseed and sunflower seed prices reaching EUR 1,000 per tonne. Oilseed production, however, is not a concern, being estimated to grow by 6.5% to 30.2 million tonnes this marketing year, and projected to increase to 32.2 million tonnes in the coming marketing year. The latter would include 11.2 million tonnes of sunflower seeds.
April 5, 2022/ European Commission/ European Union.
https://ec.europa.eu/
