Miller Magazine Issue: 130 October 2020

88 MARKET ANALYSIS MILLER / OCtOber 2020 soybeans within the country. Recently, the Ukrainian government took an unpopular measure to protect the processors - exporters were denied tax refunds when exporting raw materials. But manufacturers insisted on equal opportunities for all, and the initiative was canceled. Due to weather conditions, the new soybean harvest in Ukraine is expected to be 30% lower than last year. According to my estimates by it barely exce- eds 3,1MMT. Against the background of rising prices all over the world due to active demand from China, Ukrainian soybeans are also becoming more expensi- ve. The precedent of imports of soybeans for the first time in the history of Ukraine was not ignored either. The representative of the Arnika company, which pro- cesses soybeans into a unique type of feed, supported the opinion that if producers hold back sales and give preference to exporters, they are ready to buy impor- ted soybeans. Although, in general, imports are not yet considered by the market in any significant volumes. The discussion panel on the world legume market aroused the greatest interest among the conference participants. The organizers decided to move away from the standard and boring presentation model and brought together representatives of exporters and im- porters from around the world from India and China to Canada and Brazil on one screen. Turkey was repre- sented by Sintez Group , a large pea processor. Ukraine was represented by the HarvEast holding , David Chen from China and Julio Mariucci from Brazil discussed the specifics of the beans market, which caused many ad- ditional questions from everyone. In particular, when will Ukraine be able to supply beans to China, and does Brazil have an interest in Ukrainian beans? With de- mand growing in both countries, this would support the price of beans. An interesting fact is that these count- ries have changed their trade statuses, Brazil used to buy beans, and now began to sell them. The demand for food is growing. Mr. Bogusoglu and Navnit Chhabra focused on the issues of chickpea. A few years back, kabuli chickpea prices were at record highs. Growers at all origins responded by seeding more and more of them, resulting in a global glut that caused prices to crash. Production has since dec- lined, but burdensome carryover stocks have continued to weigh down prices. In the starting of 2020, with reduced production in India and Mexico, and lower seeding inten- tions in the US, Canada, Turkey and Ukraine, Russia, there was an expectation that market con- ditions would improve. But then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, shuttering the HORECA (Hotel = HO, Restaurant = RE, Cafe = CA) sector, the major kabuli chickpea consumer globally. Now with the pandemic easing and HORECA businesses reopening, in the past few weeks, we saw good demands & market improved little bit. In the past few weeks, India desi chickpeas prices increased from 150-180 USD PMT, so with this reason India is looking cheap kabuli chickpeas in range of 350- 470 USD PMT, which can be used as an Alternate of Desi chickpeas for making flour after paying 44% duty on this imported white chickpeas. So you can say it is not actual demand of white chickpeas for direct food consumption. So any white chickpeas which are not in range of 350-470 USD pmt will be not feasible for In- dian market as per today situation. First, as I mentioned Ukraine has a huge potential on farm level, they grow different varities of seeds, but in many cases, I saw they mix many varieties of seeds at time of harvest or may be processors. So at farm level seeds should not to be mixed or either at processors plants. At processors & traders level, my suggestion is not to sale chickpeas like yellow peas! Chickpeas are premi- um product of pulses industry, try to sale clean, sortex, sized, bagged product i/o farmer dressed. Ukraine tra- ders and exporters need to be more professional and understand international trade terms. Kirill Mikhaylov of ETG and other participants in the debate have con- firmed that despite the best efforts of manufacturers, Ukrainian peas is still considered less quality and dis- counted the buyer, even though it is not. This is one of the issues that exporters still need to work on. The last panel was devoted to the problems of pro- duction and logistics in the face of worsening weather and economic conditions, as well as quarantine. Manu- facturers and infrastructure representatives shared their experiences and it was so exciting that for the first time in my memory the conference participants stayed in the hall until the end. At Ukrainian pulses conference spon- sors know what they support.