Danube at 40 Percent: Grain Exports to Constanta Stall
The Danube at the Romanian border has dropped to about 40 percent of its usual level, says acting Produktna Berza director Vlado Kovacevic, as corn and soybean yields come in below average.
The Danube’s flow at the border with Romania has dropped to about 40 percent of its usual level, Vlado Kovacevic, acting director of the Produktna Berza (Product Exchange) in Novi Sad, tells RTS. According to him, that has effectively cut off Serbia’s most important grain export route, the one that runs down the river to the Romanian port of Constanta.
The news comes a day after the first contracts for the new corn and sunflower harvest were signed on the Produktna Berza. Prices, excluding VAT, on September 2 stood at 20 to 20.2 dinars per kilogram for wheat, 19 to 19.2 dinars for corn, 52 to 52.2 dinars for sunflower, 55 to 56 dinars for soybeans, and 17.8 to 18 dinars for barley. Corn that has been tested for aflatoxin fetches a higher price than untested shipments.
Corn and soybean yields below average
There is no hard data yet on this year’s yields, but the picture coming in from the field is already clear, Kovacevic says.
“What we’re hearing from the field is that the corn and soybean harvest will be below average, while we expect a better result for sunflower,” Kovacevic says.
Sunflower has a longer growing season than corn and soybeans, but it holds up better under drought, which is why expectations for its yield are more favorable despite the longer cycle.
Why the Danube became a problem for exporters
Grains and oilseeds are bulk cargo, relatively low in value compared to their weight, so transport cost alone can decide whether an export shipment is worth making. A low Danube isn’t just a logistics headache in that context. It’s a pricing factor.
“Our most important export route, the Danube toward the port of Constanta, is now practically cut off,” Kovacevic points out.
That leaves trucking and rail as substitutes, both slower and more expensive than moving grain by river. Kovacevic adds that the international market is being shaped at the same time by the situation in the Black Sea region, where exports from Ukraine and Russia have shrunk, so the Danube disruption is hitting just as alternative routes are already under strain.
Farmers pivot to wheat
Repeated droughts and extreme temperatures in recent years have already reshaped what gets planted. Citing data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS), Kovacevic says land planted with wheat, which has a shorter growing season and tolerates high summer temperatures better, is up 7.5 percent from the previous year. Corn acreage fell 3.8 percent over the same period, soybean acreage fell 7.5 percent, while sunflower acreage rose 3.5 percent.
The Srpske novine portal reported in late August on farmers’ request for subsidies, at a time when sunflower was trading on the Produktna Berza at around 50 dinars per kilogram and corn at 19 dinars. Current prices, 52 to 52.2 dinars for sunflower and 19 to 19.2 dinars for corn, show the price relationship between the two crops hasn’t shifted much since then, while the Danube export problem has only now acquired a concrete number: 40 percent of the usual water level.
A turbulent autumn ahead
Kovacevic notes that geopolitics has become a factor in grain and oilseed price forecasts to a degree it wasn’t in past years. A particular unknown is how open export channels out of Ukraine and Russia will remain. Domestic prices, he adds, are tracking global exchanges: wheat prices on the US market have hit their highest level in three years, while on the Paris Matif exchange wheat has been trading at around 239 euros per ton, with corn rising as well.
As an example of how quickly trade flows can shift, Kovacevic points to Romania, which has a good wheat harvest this year but weaker quality, meaning Serbian wheat, of better quality, is being exported there and blended with the Romanian crop. It’s also not out of the question that Hungary could import corn from Serbia this year, a situation that wasn’t typical before.
“We expect a turbulent autumn, but our farmers and traders have already gotten used to that kind of thing,” Kovacevic says.
His advice to farmers is to keep a close eye on the market and, where possible, manage their price risk, given how quickly geopolitics, logistics, and the Danube’s water level can move the numbers they’re currently working with.
