Poland’s past-agriculture minister had urged farmers to hold onto what they harvested in anticipation of a rebound and greater returns as global grain costs started dropping last year after a rise in the month of February.
For some, the wager had a poor outcome.
Polish farmer Konarski still has approximately 150 tonnes of grain locked in storage almost a year later, and he claims some of his rivals in the third-biggest wheat-producing country in the EU have even larger stocks of crops sitting in silos.
A perfect storm struck farmers in Poland and similar eastern European nations who waited for higher rates.
While the EU freed its borders to the tariff-free imports of soiled Ukrainian grain in a show of unity after Russia closed the country’s Black Sea ports, an increase in exports from Russia and Brazil also contributed to a decline in grain prices globally.
While the EU sought to address a worldwide food crisis by providing Ukrainian farmers with a channel to send grain or oilseeds to their conventional markets in Africa, or the Middle East, and perhaps Asia, most stayed in Eastern Europe.
Lacking locally produced goods, millers and producers of livestock in Poland turned to a torrent of imports from Ukraine that were transported into the EU by lorries and trains, according to grain traders and farmers.
Governments throughout Eastern Europe have blamed Ukraine for their farmers’ problems, while Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesman of Polish Trade Union for Individual Farmers, claimed that part of the region’s problems were brought on by farmers hoarding harvests after being urged to do so by politicians.
He said, as a result, farmers had decreased sales throughout the harvest and storage of their grains, with the result that they are now receiving less money from the sale of their cereals.
Ukrainian farmers would be forced to export all of their grains through eastern Europe if the corridor, which is set to expire this month, were to fail.
However, they have significantly dropped below the prices that many farmers in eastern Europe anticipated. Grain traders claimed that the price received for the grain from Ukraine was in line with European trade levels.
The Ukraine, which had been the 3rd-largest grain supplier in the world prior to the conflict with Russia, now faces even more dire prospects for its agricultural sector as a result of EU limitations on grain imports.
Due to a lack of lorries or rail wagons, the rush of grain from Ukraine into eastern Europe has made it more difficult for its EU counterparts to export their own harvests.
Farmers in Romania allege that Ukrainian grain trucks are standing up at their gates while they claim that local factories and processors are uninterested in buying their wheat and maize.
Farmers claimed that finding lorries to transport their own goods had been difficult due to an increase in logistical costs of 70% from pre-war levels.
Small retailers, merchants, and food grinders have profited throughout the EU and the supply chain, as shared by consultant AGRIColumn’s Cezar Gheorghe. Since May 2022, Romanian farmers have consistently lost opportunities to sell their grain.
As shown by figures released by Ukraine’s farm ministry, over 17 million tonnes of important agricultural products have fled Ukraine since the crisis started via road, rail, and barges on the Danube.
Since the borders of Ukraine with Belarus and Russia have been blocked, all of the grain, or around 38% of the country’s exports, flowed to the eastern European Union.
According to the Ukraine grain trade union UGA, a shortage on the local marketplace resulted from local farmers’ desire to hold onto their produce in anticipation of better prices. As a result, customers hurried to purchase the Ukrainian grain that was then available.
U.N. figures showed additional 28 million tonnes of crop products from Ukraine have been shipped through the safe passage from its Black Sea ports.
