Ukraine corn prices surge as corn growers hold back stocks

Limited supply from farmers and heightened competitiveness in destination markets have led to a surge in corn prices from the Black Sea region with FOB values from Ukrainian ports reaching their highest level since March 2023, marking a nearly two-year peak.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed FOB POC corn at $225/mt on Jan. 29, up from $223/mt the previous week and significantly higher than the year-ago price of $173/mt.

The purchasing price of corn delivered to Ukraine's Black Sea ports hit $213/mt in the third week of January, traders said, with CPT prices on the rise since the start of the new season in October.

"CPT is going crazy," said one broker for the Ukraine corn market, referring to the surge in price since the start of 2025.

Sources said that farmers have been withholding stocks in anticipation of prices rising further and selling corn to traders only in very limited quantities. "Farmers are not selling," one trader based in Kyiv said, while another trader in Ukraine said that only 50,000 mt would be sold on a CPT basis daily by farmers.

"The farmers keep selling, so it depends on their financial needs for planting," the second trader added.

Despite the rise in prices, Ukraine continues to be a competitive origin for several destination markets, including Northwest Europe, Egypt, Turkey and Spain. A corn buyer in the Netherlands noted that "Ukraine is the cheapest origin, along with France."

In Egypt, traders consider Ukraine a competitive source in the domestic market, which has favored the import of Ukrainian corn. "During the first half of January, we sourced around 48.4% of our corn from Brazil, with the remainder coming from Ukraine," an Egyptian trader said.

Meanwhile, high corn prices have made corn more expensive than feed wheat in Europe, leading some feed mills to substitute corn with feed wheat to varying degrees.

"This is the most interesting development today -- wheat is now cheaper than corn," a feed mill source in the Netherlands said, while a feed mill buyer in Spain noted that "wheat use is increasing."

In Spain, the price spread between feed wheat and feed corn offered to feed mills and end users on an ex-works basis has narrowed to just Eur2-3. A buyer from Spain noted, "The spread has been narrowing, especially in the Mediterranean."

According to market sources, on Jan. 29, offers for FOB POC feed wheat were reported at $231/mt for February delivery, while offers for Ukrainian corn at FOB POC were noted at $228/mt for the same delivery month. On a CIF basis, feed wheat offers for CIF Spainmed for March were observed at $250/mt, while CIF Spainmed offers for Ukrainian corn were at $248/mt.