Less Corn Could Arrive in Hungary in 2023

As Ukraine expects to have a smaller harvest next year than this year, Hungary will probably be able to import less from its northeastern neighbor.

Ukraine's corn harvest could fall by almost half, from 41.9 million tons in 2021 to 22-23 million tons in 2022. The Russian invasion prevented the harvesting of grain in some areas, the country's agriculture minister, Mikola Solsky, said earlier this month, the business news site napi.hu reports.

The ministry had thought in September that a corn harvest of 25-27 million tons was possible, but farmers left a lot of corn in the fields due to lack of fuel and money. These areas will have to be harvested in the spring, which will mean lower quantities and, of course, poorer quality, Agroinform.hu cited APK-Inform.

According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture, farmers had harvested 18.4 million tons of corn from 70% of the area by mid-December. The total grain harvest on December 15 amounted to 45 million tons, which means that a total harvest of 51 million tons is possible by the end of the year. Depending on the logistical situation, 49 million tons will be available for export.

The minister also said that the large area of unharvested corn would prevent farmers from planting corn on these fields again in the spring. “Winter harvesting means that the fields cannot be prepared for spring sowing, which means that there will probably be less corn next year," the portal said.

According to Agroinform.hu, all this means that Hungary will probably have access to smaller quantities of corn.

It is important to know, however, that Ukraine has huge stocks, so in December they still exported last year's crop only, which means that the new crop may come only after that, in much lower quality, of course. But the modest harvest means that prices can be expected to rise, they add.