The somber mood in the grain market is definitely not being lifted yet. The wheat harvest is underway, growers are eager for cash in the bank, and exports are struggling to get off the ground. However, the Ukrainian Minister of Economic Affairs paints a very different picture for his country.
The September wheat contract on the Matif closed yesterday down €3,75 at €193,50 per tonne. Wheat also took a hit on the CBoT, closing 8 cents lower at $5.08¼ per bushel. Corn didn't fare much better, closing down 1,4% at $3.81½ per bushel. Soybeans remained unchanged at $9.69 per bushel in the last trading session.
De bulls are certainly not gaining a foothold in the grain market. This is understandable for wheat. The harvest is still underway in the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in an extra supply of wheat that growers and collectors don't have room for. An additional factor this year seems to be that farmers are selling more directly to clear their current accounts. Moderate earnings in arable farming are not only a problem in the Netherlands and Europe, but also in the US. There, too, some sources report increased interest in direct sales, despite moderate prices. This ample supply reinforces buyers' inability to rush to secure anything. Understandably, they are reluctant to break the downward spiral in the market.
The European Commission's export figures more or less confirm this. In the new season, which starts on July 1st, 1,11 million tons of wheat were exported. By comparison, last year, when exports also got off to a slow start and yields were severely disappointing due to the extremely wet growing season, 2,64 million tons were exported in the first few weeks.
Positive sound
In that light, the statements made by Ukrainian Economic Affairs Minister Taras Vysotskiy in an interview with Reuters are remarkable. According to him, wheat prices in Ukraine are good. For the coming season, Vysotskiy therefore expects a 6,4% expansion of the winter wheat acreage to 5 million hectares. "Given the current good wheat prices for both food and feed, a sown area of 5 million hectares is possible," Vysotskiy stated in the first official acreage estimate for the 2025/26 season. According to the Ukrainian Farmers' Union, the wheat price is fluctuating between $222 and $227 per ton. A real dip, as usually occurs around harvest, is not yet evident in Ukraine.
High expectations
You'd almost think that US traders are still recovering from the Crop Progress report from earlier this week. It's no surprise that corn is generally doing well, but as the crop continues to grow and harvest approaches, a bumper harvest becomes increasingly certain. This pushes the September 2025 contract to a new low.
In Brazil, the harvest of the second crop of corn is not yet complete. According to Agrural, 81% of the acreage has been harvested, compared to 95% this week last year. "With drier weather in the wetter regions, there are more areas where the corn is ready for threshing. This gives farmers an incentive to continue harvesting, and the harvest will continue at a rapid pace in the coming days," Agrural writes.