In October 2026, Ukraine exported only 1.125 million tons of agricultural products, which is about 50% of the expected volumes for this period, as export logistics capacity remains very limited, reported the Minister of Agricultural Policy T. Vysotsky.
Exports of grain crops amounted to 670 thousand tons (or 60% of the total), oilseeds - 184 thousand tons, sunflower oil - 138 thousand tons, and meal - 132 thousand tons.
Currently, Ukraine's transport infrastructure is operating at capacity, so it will not be possible to significantly increase exports in the near future. Limited opportunities for grain supplies to foreign markets do not allow producers who have harvested good harvests of grain and oilseeds to fully realize their export potential, as logistical problems have negatively affected all segments of agricultural exports.
The Ministry of Agrarian Policy notes that in conditions of limited logistics, preference should be given to the export of value-added products, which will increase the efficiency of using available transport for the supply of agricultural products. Therefore, stable exports of sunflower oil and meal are very important now, which ensures foreign exchange earnings for the country.
At the same time, there is no shortage of products on the domestic food market of Ukraine. Retail chains, supermarkets, markets and other sales channels have a sufficient assortment of vegetables and other products, and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy carefully monitors the process of providing the country's population with food.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy is preparing a decision to give edible oil exports priority amid limited logistics capacity. The initiative has already received support from all relevant agricultural associations, Minister of Agrarian Policy Taras Vysotskyi said during a meeting with journalists, according to Forbes Ukraine.
According to Vysotskyi, priority will be given specifically to vegetable oil as a value-added product, while meal and oilcake will be excluded from the list. Discussions with industry representatives have already been completed. The document will now be coordinated with the relevant ministries before being submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for approval. No specific timeline has been announced.
The Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC), which previously opposed granting export priority to meal and oilcake, has supported faster sunflower oil exports. UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov explained that farmers are interested in ensuring that processors can sell their products abroad quickly, as they supply sunflower seeds to Ukrainian processing facilities. Moreover, transporting raw sunflower seeds requires twice as much cargo capacity as transporting processed products.
Vysotskyi noted that priority for food products is already in place under the eQueue system for road transport. However, no similar mechanism has been introduced for grains and oilseeds. The proposed decision is intended to facilitate priority handling of edible oil export shipments amid logistics constraints.
The need for these changes is driven by the challenging situation in Ukraine’s export logistics. During the first 13 days of October, Ukraine exported 1.125 mln t of agricultural products, accounting for only 50% of the required volume. Against this backdrop, the government is seeking ways to use limited logistics capacity more efficiently for exports of value-added products.
A research team at Sejong University in Seoul, South Korea, has produced a soyabean variety with more than 90% oleic acid using gene editing, PhysOrg reported.
Led by Hyun Uk Kim, a professor in the university’s Department of Bio-Industrial Resources Engineering, the team produced the soyabean line containing up to 90.2% oleic acid using CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology, the 23 September report said.
The soyabean produced had improved oxidative stability, reduced saturated fat and increased seed fatty acid content, PhysOrg wrote.
Conventional soyabean oil contains approximately 20% oleic acid and relatively high levels of linoleic and linolenic acids. Although nutritionally important, the polyunsaturated fatty acids’ multiple double bonds make them susceptible to oxidation. As a result, soyabean oil could deteriorate in flavour and quality during high-temperature processing or long-term storage.
As a monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid is more resistant to heat and oxidation. For this reason, high-oleic soybean oil can improve storage stability, give a longer frying life and reduce oil replacement and disposal.
In addition, when used to replace saturated fat in the diet, monounsaturated fats such as oleic acid can help lower low‑density lipoprotein (LDL) and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In the study, the results of which were first published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal on 14 September, the researchers edited members of the FAD2 and FATB gene families at the same time.
FAD2 enzymes convert oleic acid into linoleic acid, while FATB enzymes contribute to the production and accumulation of saturated fatty acids. As soyabean has undergone genome duplication, it has several genes with overlapping functions. Editing one or two major genes can generally achieve the desired oil composition.
To address this, the team edited the major seed-expressed genes GmFAD2-1A and GmFAD2-1B, along with GmFAD2-2B, GmFAD2-2C and GmFATB1a.
Soyabean lines carrying different combinations of these edits were cultivated and evaluated over multiple generations.
Removing GmFAD2-1A and GmFAD2-1B increased the oleic acid level to approximately 83%.
Combining additional FAD2-2 and FATB1a edits raised the level up to 90.2%.
At the same time, linoleic and linolenic acids each decreased to below 1%, while saturated fatty acids were reduced by more than 40% compared with the wild type.
Some high-oleic lines also showed a 7%-24% increase in total fatty acid content. An analysis of 805 individual seeds further identified a positive correlation between oleic acid concentration and total fatty acid accumulation.
The EU imported notably less rapeseed in the first quarter of the current season compared with the same period of 2025.
Ukraine remained the main supplier, although volumes were noticeably smaller due to logistical bottlenecks.
At approximately 871,500 tonnes, rapeseed imports in the first quarter of 2026 were 14 per cent below those in the same period the previous year.
As in previous years, Ukraine remained the most important supplier. According to research by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft, the Ukrainian harvest exceeded the previous year's output.
Nevertheless, at 336,000 tonnes, imports remained below the 599,900 tonnes recorded from July through September 2025. Ukraine's limited export logistics continued to have a negative effect, especially on shipping. Alternative transport routes by rail are therefore increasingly gaining importance.
Australia is the EU's second most important rapeseed supplier, delivering 185,100 tonnes and accounting for 21 per cent of EU rapeseed imports.
This translates to an increase of 35 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier. Canada ranks third, supplying 121,700 tonnes.
This means that deliveries from Canada increased sharply compared with the same period in the previous year, as in 2025 imports from Canada were still around zero.
The Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Crops (UFOP) mainly attributes this development to logistical bottlenecks in Ukraine, the trade dispute with China and the dramatic increase in freight rates for imports from Australia.
The association has pointed out that the use of Canadian rapeseed in the EU is subject to restriction because of its genetically modified varieties.
This makes the biofuels market by far the most important trade channel for Canadian rapeseed oil. Against this background, the Canadian agricultural sector is becoming more closely bound by EU certification regulations.
Oct 14 (Reuters) - Chinese state buyers purchased 8-10 Panamax cargoes of US soybeans this week, the first such deals since the September summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Washington, three trade sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
The cargoes are for shipment from December onwards, they added.
The market had been awaiting signs of renewed Chinese buying after a weeks-long hiatus, partly because of weak demand during the country's week-long National Day holiday earlier this month.
The latest purchases were made by state-owned trading firms, the traders said.
The companies paid premiums of $3.10 to $3.20 per bushel over the January Chicago Board of Trade soybean contract , one of the traders said.
Each Panamax cargo carries around 65,000 metric tons of soybeans.
After the September summit, China and the US announced a proposed list of tariff reductions that excluded soybeans, dampening expectations that private crushers would return to the market for additional US supplies.
Before the latest deals, China had bought about 13.7 million tons of US soybeans, already more than halfway towards its 25 million-ton purchase target for the 2026/27 marketing year, announced by the White House.
On Tuesday, Sinograin sold 40.5% of the 518,000 tons of imported soybeans offered at auction, data from consultancy Mysteel showed. Traders expect further auctions in the coming weeks.
China imported 11.88 million tons of soybeans in September, down 7.7% from the same month last year, data from the General Administration of Customs of China showed.
Swedish fluid handling, centrifugal and heat transfer company Alfa Laval is fully integrating edible oil and biofuel processing specialist Desmet into its business.
Since Alfa Laval’s acquisition of Desmet in 2022, which included the operational units and brands of RoseDowns and Stolz – Desmet has operated as a separate entity.
However, the latest move would bring the two organisations and capabilities closer together as one global partner in process engineering solutions for the oils, fats and biofuel industries, Alfa Laval said on 5 October.
The integration was expected to be completed by July 2027 and, going forward, the Desmet brand would be a product and process technology brand within Alfa Laval, the company said.
“By bringing our capabilities together, we can offer … more integrated solutions,” said Sammy Hulpiau, president of Alfa Laval’s Food & Pharma Division.
As part of the phased integration, Desmet’s upstream extraction and processing expertise would be combined with Alfa Laval’s technologies in separation, heat transfer and downstream processing.
The joint global sales, service and supply network would be extended with local teams in more than 150 countries, Alfa Laval said.
Desmet would be integrated into the Business Unit Process Engineering Solutions in Alfa Laval’s Food & Pharma Division.
Founded in Belgium in 1946, Desmet supplies engineering technologies and process solutions for the oils and fats, proteins, feed and biofuels sectors.
Stockholm-headquartered Alfa Laval specialises in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling systems, and is active in the energy, food, water, marine transport, offshore operations and water sectors in around 100 countries.
Global oilseed production in 2026/27 is forecast by USDA at 722.2 mln tons, up from 701.01 mln tons a season earlier. In particular, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower seed production is expected to increase. At the same time, USDA lowered its overall oilseed production estimate by 1.26 mln tons from the September forecast. The monthly reduction mainly reflects lower estimates for peanuts, palm kernel and rapeseed, partly offset by a higher soybean production forecast.
Global soybean production is forecast at 442.7 mln tons, compared with 429.19 mln tons a season earlier. The estimate was raised by 0.35 mln tons from September on improved prospects in the United States, while forecasts for India and the EU were lowered. Global soybean ending stocks are expected at around 124.3 mln tons.
Global rapeseed production could reach a record 99.57 mln tons, up from 96.04 mln tons in 2025/26. However, USDA cut the forecast by 0.4 mln tons from September, partly due to weaker crop prospects in the EU. The estimate for global rapeseed ending stocks was also reduced to 11.6 mln tons.
The strongest year-on-year growth is expected in the sunflower market. Global sunflower seed production in 2026/27 is forecast at 63.62 mln tons, compared with 55.35 mln tons a season earlier. Sunflower oil production could rise to 23.89 mln tons from 21.11 mln tons, while global exports are expected to increase to 15.97 mln tons from 13.59 mln tons.
For Ukraine, USDA forecasts a sunflower seed crop of 13 mln tons, up from 10.7 mln tons in 2025/26. Sunflower oil production could increase from 4.52 mln to 5.42 mln tons, while exports may rise from 4.04 mln to 5 mln tons. Thus, Ukrainian sunflower oil shipments could grow by almost 24%.
Despite lowering its oilseed production forecast in October, USDA raised its estimate for global oilseed crush by 0.27 mln tons to a record 611.89 mln tons, compared with 593.4 mln tons a season earlier. At the same time, the ending stocks forecast was cut by 0.33 mln tons to 146.31 mln tons, pointing to further growth in oilseed consumption and processing.
For the second consecutive year, farmers in Kazakhstan have been reducing the share of grain crops in their crop rotations and shifting towards oilseeds, which offer higher margins. Over the past five years, the share of oilseeds has increased from 14% to 22%.
Andrii Antonov, Executive Director for Strategic Development at the National Oilseed Processors Association of Kazakhstan (NOPA), said this during AgroFoodSummit in Mersin, Türkiye.
According to him, Kazakhstan leads Central Asia in terms of agricultural land area, cultivating 24 million hectares, of which oilseeds account for 5.3 million hectares. The main oilseed crops are...