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Agriculture has suffered losses of over $25 billion since the war began, Ukrainian grain trader association UGA estimates. Ukraine's grain exports so far in the 2023/24 season that started in July are running 28% below the year-earlier volume, according to agriculture ministry data. A new Black Sea shipping channel may offer a lifeline, like for Ukraine's depleted steel industry. An additional 943,000 tons should leave from Black Sea ports and 464,000 tons from the Danube by the month-end. A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa on Nov. 21 added to a series of attacks on Ukraine's Black Sea and Danube grain ports.

Persons: Stringer, Jean, Francois Lepy, Dmitry Skornyakov, Denys Marchuk, Skornyakov, Yuriy Stelmakh, Roman Gorobets, Soliman, Scott Wellcome, Pavel Polityuk, Gus Trompiz, Nigel Hunt, David Evans Organizations: REUTERS, Agriculture, UGA, Spike, Agrarian Council, FE ASTRA, Kremlin, Mediterranean, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia region, PARIS, Russia, UN, Geneva, Black, Russian, Odesa, Romania's Constanta, Brazil, Egypt, GoodMills, Kyiv, Paris, London

☆ Exclusive: Suedzucker unit drops plan to lift French sugar output, citing Ukraine imports
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Sybille De La Hamaide | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

European sugar prices have hit record highs, well above soaring global markets, due to a sugar deficit in the bloc, linked notably to falling output in France where farmers have been deterred by poor harvests in recent years. High sugar prices at a time when grain prices have fallen could make farmers favour beets in their rotations, sugar beet growers said. The French sugar beet crop area fell to a 14-year low this year. "We must be careful not to fall into the opposite extreme," Franck Sander, chairman of French sugar beet union CGB, told Reuters, warning that a rise in area could make EU prices slump. Saint Louis Sucre closed two factories in 2019 as part of a wider restructuring plan at Suedzucker, Europe’s largest sugar refiner.

Persons: Saint Louis Sucre, Germany's Suedzucker, Saint, Louis Sucre, rapeseed sowings, Franck Sander, Sybille de La, Nigel Hunt, Michael Hogan, Sharon Singleton Organizations: Reuters, European Union, Thomson Locations: France, Ukraine, Suedzucker, Poland, London, Hamburg

☆ Take Five: Farewell to a bruising August
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 14, 2023. Other data such as consumer confidence, the state of manufacturing, and inflation, with the latest personal consumption expenditures index is also due. Line chart with data from Refinitiv Datstreamn shows U.S. unemployment rate and federal funds target rate from January 2021 to July 2023. Yet Thursday's flash euro area August inflation number, which follows releases from some member states, could be the decider. The world's most populous country is already concerned about the threat to production of several basic commodities, including rice and sugar.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Lewis Krauskopf, Kevin Buckland, Nigel Hunt, Dhara, payrolls, Bundesbank, buybacks, Xi Jinping, Karin Strohecker, Sharon Singleton Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, Treasury, Federal Reserve, ECB, Reuters, Nino, Climate, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, China, Lewis, New York, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Jackson Hole , Wyoming, Indonesia, Thailand

"It is not going to be easy for them (Russia)," said one industry executive with knowledge of grains exports. Last year, Russia exported a record volume of wheat on ships chartered from international companies and traders. "Most of what is coming out is dealt with by Russian traders using (shadow) fleet ships, which international traders would not touch". The Black Sea remains a critical area for Russian exports, with other locations more complicated and costly. Russia's Black Sea terminals handle about 70% of the country's grain exports.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Eduard Zernin, Zernin, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, Viterra, Dreyfus, Bunge, Denmark's, Mike Salthouse, Rosagroleasing, Victoria Mitchell, Jonathan Saul, Nigel Hunt, Polina Devitt, Gus Trompiz, Frank Jack Daniel Our Organizations: General's, REUTERS, Russia's, Grain, Reuters, International Grains Council, Russian, Control, Thomson Locations: Russian, Odesa, Ukraine, Russia Russia, Moscow, Africa, Novorossiysk, Russia's Union, Russia, Turkey, China, Denmark's NORDEN, Bulgaria, Romania, United States, Europe, Taman, Russia's, ., London, Paris

☆ Explainer: Why the EU is restricting grain imports from Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Poland, meanwhile, received 2.08 million tonnes of corn, 579,315 tonnes of wheat and 44,114 tonnes of barley in 2022. They have, however, faced increased competition in local markets from Ukrainian grain and oilseeds. Ukrainian grain was shipped to 95 countries that season with major buyers including China, Egypt, Pakistan, Spain and Libya. This is partly because Russian wheat exports have actually risen following a record harvest last summer. A decline in Ukraine's corn exports has also been offset by a jump in shipments from Brazil.

Farmers in Poland and other eastern European countries who held out for higher prices have been hit by a perfect storm. A jump in exports from Brazil and Russia helped to drive global grain prices lower while the EU opened its borders to tariff-free Ukrainian grain imports in a show of solidarity after Russia blocked the country's Black Sea ports. After opening its borders to Ukrainian grain, Poland imported 2.08 million tonnes of maize and 579,315 tonnes of wheat last year, up from just 6,269 tonnes of maize and 3,033 tonnes of wheat in 2021. If the grain corridor due to expire this month were to collapse, Ukrainian farmers would have little option but to send all their grain exports through eastern Europe. European wheat prices hit post-harvest highs in October 2022 of more than 350 euros a tonne but since then prices have dropped to pre-invasion levels of about 235 euros.

Under the pact to create a safe shipping channel, Ukraine has been able to export some 27.7 million tonnes of agricultural products, including 13.9 million tonnes of corn and 7.5 million tonnes of wheat. The leading destinations have been China (6.3 million tonnes), Spain (4.8 million) and Turkey (3 million). Ukraine's grain exports are forecast to fall in the 2023/24 season after the war has meant farmers planted less corn and wheat. The International Grains Council has forecast that Ukraine's corn crop will fall to 21 million tonnes, down from the prior season's 27 million, with exports expected to drop to 15 million tonnes from 20.5 million. CAN UKRAINE EXPORT MORE GRAIN THROUGH LAND ROUTES?

CAIRO, March 9 (Reuters) - Egypt, one of the world's largest wheat importers, has given notice it will withdraw at the end of June from a decades-old U.N. grains treaty, causing consternation among some other signatories to the convention. Egypt signed the GTC, the only international treaty covering trade in grains, at its inception in 1995, and has been a member of the council that governs it since 1949. Several delegations within the IGC are surprised and sad about the decision," Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council, which administers the treaty, told Reuters. Other signatories to the GTC include major grain importers and exporters such as the United States and the European Union. Two sources familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters that Egypt owed the IGC membership fees.

☆ Bird flu alarm drives world towards once-shunned vaccines
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Sybille De La Hamaide | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

"That's why every country in the world is worried about bird flu," French agriculture minister Marc Fesneau said. But the fear of trade restrictions remains centre stage for countries reluctant to vaccinate poultry against bird flu. Bird flu can also mutate rapidly and reduce the efficacy of vaccines while programmes are costly and time consuming, as shots often need to be administered individually. Ceva said it was using the mRNA technology used in some COVID shots for the first time in poultry vaccines. The global market for bird flu vaccines would be about 800 million to 1 billion doses per year, excluding China, said Sylvain Comte, corporate marketing director for poultry at Ceva.

☆ Dozens of merchant ships stuck off Iran as payment snags bite - sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Dozens of merchant ships with grains and sugar are stuck outside Iranian ports after weeks of delays as payments snags disrupt flows of goods into the country, according to trade sources and shipping data. The latest payment issues have led to ships being unable to discharge cargoes, with at least 40 bulk carrier ships stuck outside the major Iranian ports of Bandar Imam Khomeini and Bandar Abbas, ship tracking data on Refinitiv showed. In the previous five seasons, imports had averaged just 1.1 million tonnes, the data showed. One Western trade source familiar with the matter estimated that the cargoes stuck outside Iran's port are worth more than $1 billion with charterers of the cargoes also facing delay costs known as demurrage. Broker Paragon Global Markets (PGM) said it was not clear how many of the vessels might have sugar cargoes onboard.

Both Ukraine and the Russia-installed authorities agree that some grain has been exported from occupied Zaporizhzhia via Crimea. Ukraine says at least a part of the grain that passed through Sevastopol was taken from Ukrainian territories after Russia invaded. Prior to the current war, Syria had imported grain from Crimea on previous occasions since Russia took control of the peninsula, Reuters reported. According to the Refinitiv data, Syria imported about 501,800 tonnes of wheat from Sevastopol this year until the end of November, up from about 28,200 tonnes in the whole of 2021. During a visit to Crimea in January, Syria's economy minister said his country needed 1.5 million tonnes of wheat imports, with Russia providing the majority.

Other participants were pressing ahead with the deal despite Russia's withdrawal while France said it was working to boost Ukraine grain exports via land routes in conjunction with other European Union states. A record volume of 354,500 tonnes of agricultural products was carried on vessels leaving Ukrainian ports on Monday as part of the Black Sea grain deal, a spokesperson for Odesa's military administration said. WHEAT PRICES CLIMBWheat prices rose on Monday, climbing around 6% to $8.78 a bushel in Chicago, but remained far below a peak of $13.63-1/2 set in early March shortly after the conflict began. The strong pace of wheat exports from Russia, which harvested a record crop this summer, has helped to bolster supplies on the world market. "Typically, it takes about two months for higher grain prices to filter through the supply chain and impact consumers at the retail level," said a Sydney-based analyst.

Endive farmers Emmanuel Lefebvre and Christophe Mazingarbe walk in a field of endive plants in Bouvines, France, September 15, 2022. Across northern and western Europe, vegetable producers are contemplating halting their activities because of the financial hit from Europe's energy crisis, further threatening food supplies. Surging gas prices are the biggest cost vegetable farmers cultivating inside greenhouses face, farmers said. HEADING SOUTHFarmers are not just contending with spiralling energy prices. read moreEven in sun-flushed countries like Spain, fruit and vegetable farmers are grappling with a 25% increase in fertiliser costs.

[1/3] Cargo ship Despina V, carrying Ukrainian grain, is seen in the Black Sea off Kilyos near Istanbul, Turkey November 2, 2022. The agreement, reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages, with Ukraine's customers including some of the world's poorest countries. So far, some 9.76 million tonnes of agricultural products have been shipped, predominately corn, but also volumes of soybeans, sunflower oil, sunflower meal and barley. A drop in shipments from major exporter Ukraine has played a role in this year's global food price crisis, but there are also other important drivers. At the start of the conflict there were around 2,000 seafarers from all over the world stranded in Ukrainian ports.

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