Buckwheat shortage inevitable: what is happening with production in Ukraine
19 January 15:09
INTERVIEW
For Ukrainians, buckwheat is not just a food product, but an element of food security and part of the national food culture. However, this season, the market for this crop has come under pressure: reduced acreage, low yields, lack of government support, and the overall impact of the war could lead to shortages and a new round of price increases. Will Ukraine have enough buckwheat of its own, or will it have to resort to imports again, and who actually controls the global market for this niche but strategically important crop? Journalists from "Komersant Ukrainian" spoke with Serhiy Gromov, executive director of the International Buckwheat Association (an international association of scientific institutions, producers, and processors of buckwheat and its unique products).
– Is our own buckwheat production sufficient to meet our needs and do without imports, if we talk about the current season?
– If we are talking about the current season, then for the first time in many years, it may not be enough. The balance shows that there will not be enough buckwheat produced this year.
– How much will be lacking?
– It is difficult to say how much will be lacking, because we have two unknown factors. The population and the amount of buckwheat consumed by the population. The population varies greatly. According to official data, there are 35 million people, while more pessimistic estimates put the figure at 25 million. So it’s hard to say. And it’s not entirely clear how much, because no one has measured per capita consumption in recent years. Therefore, we assume that we have grown 59,000 hectares. Roughly speaking, this is 60,000 tons of groats. Before the war, our consumption level was around 3-3.5 kilograms per capita. That is, even with a population of 30 million, we can already see that there is an imbalance.
So, 59,000 hectares were harvested, 80,000 tons of grain. From 80,000 tons of grain, that’s 55,000 tons of grain. We divide by 30, if there are 30 million of us. Less than 2 kilograms per person. That’s very little.
And the level of consumption in Ukraine is 3-3.5 kilograms. Even with a population of 30 million, that would be about 100,000 tons of grain. And we will have 55. There will be a shortage. There will be a shortage this year.
But for now, the price is stable. We are still consuming last year’s supply. But closer to spring, there may be a shortage and prices will rise.
– Can you predict how much the cost of buckwheat will increase this year?
It has already increased. If we recall, the season starts in September. We buy it in stores. I am now taking the store price. In stores, it cost 30-40 UAH per kg. Today it is already 40-60. The price has increased by 30%. If there is a shortage, it may be even more expensive. There will be further growth. I think we will feel this increase somewhere around March-April. The cheaper buckwheat at 40 hryvnia will disappear, and it will go up to 50-60.
– And if we talk about the regions of Ukraine where buckwheat is grown the most, why is it in those regions?
– Buckwheat was not actually grown in the steppe part of Ukraine. There were 100 or 200 hectares in the entire Luhansk region. Donetsk region – 200 hectares.
These are not large areas. We had key regions that were connected with processing, where most of the processing enterprises were located, namely the Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kharkiv, and Zhytomyr regions.
These regions were and remain the main producers of buckwheat. The rest are smaller. Chernihiv and Volyn are smaller. And in those regions, about 50% of production was concentrated. Now it’s a little less.
– And if we talk about Chinese buckwheat, is it present on our market? Is it true that we have more Chinese buckwheat than Ukrainian?
– No, that’s not true. Chinese buckwheat, look, I need to explain a little history to you so that you understand. Before the war, before the hybrid war, before the war started, Russia’s buckwheat market from Ukraine, that is, it started in 2016, Russia began to capture our market. Until then, until 2016, roughly 10 years ago, there were three countries that exported buckwheat. These were Russia, China, and Ukraine.
The rest of the countries in the world either import it or grow small amounts for their own consumption. You asked who is the largest consumer of buckwheat, in my opinion. Japan is the largest importer of buckwheat.
It imports around 100,000 tons of grain. Let’s say they don’t eat groats, they have flour products, soba – homemade vermicelli made from buckwheat flour. So they are the largest importers. In general, the buckwheat market is estimated at 500 to 700 thousand tons. The global buckwheat market. Japan alone imports that amount. And Europe, the European Union, imported up to 250 thousand tons. So it all came from Russia and Ukraine. It went to Japan, an Asian country, and it came from China. From Russia too, and from America, they also bought Canadian buckwheat, different kinds.
So Russia began to conquer the Ukrainian market. They conquered it. From 2016, with an aggressive dumping policy, first of all, you may remember, we had buckwheat in bulk, it cost 11 hryvnia per kilogram in 2019. And it conquered 50% of our market.
In 2022, when the war began, we saw with our own eyes that our market had been conquered. This is just an example I am giving you.
And from March to May 2022, when all logistical ties with Russia were severed, and Russian buckwheat imports began to arrive… Buckwheat, if you remember, was 30-35 hryvnia per kilogram in stores, and it jumped to 90-110 hryvnia. There was such a period.
This confirms that we were completely dependent on the Russian market.
Our acreage fell from 200-250, around 200 thousand tons, to 63, as I recall now, 63 thousand hectares were sown in 2019. Yes, in 2019, I remember, the worst year.
Then we introduced subsidies, the state introduced subsidies in 2021, farmers received them, there was a slight increase, and then the war started, the area under cultivation increased, and there it rose to about 100 thousand. At one time, we exported 200-300 thousand tons of grain, mainly to the European market, about 250 thousand tons, which was mainly our market. Russia conquered that market, then conquered our market, we became net importers rather than net exporters of buckwheat, and turned to China.
China was also an exporter, but now, for the last three years, since 2022, they have been importing buckwheat into China on a massive scale. China’s acreage is decreasing, and China’s buckwheat imports actually exceed its buckwheat exports. In other words, there is only one country left in the world that is capable of exporting significant volumes of buckwheat, and that is Russia.
– And if we talk about the top five producers, who are the largest producers?
Russia, China, Ukraine with its 60,000 hectares, which is a large producer, Kazakhstan, and Poland.
– Why do buckwheat acreages fluctuate from year to year? Has buckwheat cultivation decreased in Ukraine since independence?
– Yes, since independence, significantly less buckwheat has been sown. We had the largest buckwheat harvest in 2000, I think, when we sowed almost 500,000 hectares of buckwheat. Today, it’s 60,000 hectares, which is 10 times less.
– And if we talk about the war, how has it affected the geography of crops? Access to land, risks of mining fields, etc.?
– This factor is not so significant for buckwheat, because our southern and eastern regions are not suitable for growing buckwheat. Buckwheat prefers a more temperate climate, the forest-steppe zone… And the steppe was not mainly sown there. Before the war, of course, Kharkiv sowed a lot. The Kharkiv region is 10% under occupation.
This has a significant impact on the buckwheat market. The war has had an impact.
But the war is not the main factor. The main factor is the strategic direction of our agriculture. Its conquest by large agricultural holdings. The creation of large agricultural holdings in the agricultural sector.
This is the main factor. Because buckwheat is a niche crop. And I will repeat myself, only 24 countries in the world grow it. As I said, three countries exported it. The rest all imported it. And the market… sales are not that big, 500,000 tons, which is not that big globally. It’s not tens of millions of tons, like wheat, soybeans, or corn. It is a niche crop and is not traded on the stock exchange. Therefore, this is the main factor affecting the economics of buckwheat cultivation.
It is not grown by agricultural holdings, and in Ukraine almost all land is controlled by agricultural holdings. It is grown by small and medium-sized businesses or farmers. A quarter of the buckwheat is grown by the population, by individual farmers, in the gardens of grandmothers and grandfathers. A quarter is grown by medium-sized farms, a quarter by individual farmers, and roughly half is grown by medium-sized farmers.
The average buckwheat field is small, 30 hectares. This is why our beekeepers are suffering. Beekeepers are suffering because there are no large buckwheat fields on 30 hectares. And buckwheat was the main honey plant in June. The second half of June, the first half of July, when nothing else is blooming. And it was such a main honey-bearing crop for beekeepers, so that the bees could develop normally and collect pure buckwheat honey.
From such a small field, 30 hectares, it is impossible to collect pure buckwheat honey. Because for one hectare you need three hives, three families, that’s 10 families. A farmer with 300 hives will not be lucky… we don’t have large fields where bees can be taken.
As a result, we do not collect enough honey. Valuable honey — in terms of its qualities… it is second in the world in terms of quality. And the bees themselves suffer because they do not have a honey harvest during this period and they develop negatively.
They are already weakened when they move on to other honey crops, such as sunflowers. So there is a connection.
– What modern buckwheat varieties are we lacking? Is there a demand for gluten-free buckwheat among Ukrainians? If so, how big is it?
– All buckwheat is gluten-free. It was, is, and will be gluten-free. So there is nothing unique about it. People just don’t know about it. We need to promote the fact that it is gluten-free. Not quinoa, but buckwheat.
It is all gluten-free. That is its first advantage. It is the only cereal grain that is suitable for diabetics. It contains light carbohydrates that dissolve slowly in our body and do not cause a spike in the glycemic index. There is no spike, sugar does not rise high in the body. It is healthy. In Europe, by the way, it is sold in pharmacies. For diabetics in the Benelux countries.
– Are we lacking any varieties of buckwheat?
Yes, we are missing… This is the only technological problem with buckwheat that affects the economy and the strategic issues we are talking about, the spread of consumption, the level of consumption, the area. This is its peculiarity, it is a low-yield crop. On average, worldwide, it’s about 1 ton, or 1 ton 300. It fluctuates, depending on weather conditions, roughly speaking, from 0.8 to 1.5 tons per hectare. On average, across countries. In China, in our country, in Russia, in principle, the yield is the same.
And it is not very profitable… One ton is what a farmer or producer will get, which is not much money; it is a low-yield crop. What is 10 tons of corn and one ton of buckwheat?
You will get income from one hectare, well, not 10 times, but 5 times more than buckwheat. And this does not allow it to always be profitable. It is cost-effective.
It is not a loss-making crop, even despite these fluctuations, these price swings. It either has zero profitability or 500% profitability. It is rarely loss-making, but it is low-yielding.
That is why people refuse to grow it. It is grown as an insurance crop. Moreover, it is sown late. These are not the first crops. It can be sown in May or June. It is used as an insurance crop.
This is its economic basis. There are no varieties that would allow you to grow 2-2.5 tons, guaranteed. More precisely, such varieties exist, but they are not widely available. And we have such varieties. These are Sofia, Syn 03, 02, and Volya. But few people know about them. They have not become popular yet.
Farmers and breeders are now working on creating varieties that would give such yields. There was a similar problem with sunflowers 30 years ago and with soybeans. There, too, the average yield across countries was about one ton.
But in 30 years, they increased it. Sunflower and soybeans to about 2-2.5 tons. That is, breeders increased the yield by 2-3 times. This has not yet happened with buckwheat, but I think it will happen with buckwheat too.
– Besides groats on store shelves, where else can buckwheat be used? Bread, animal feed, etc. What else can it be processed into?
– Honey, husks. Buckwheat husks. When the grain is harvested and made into groats, the husks remain. They are unique and have a very beneficial effect on sleep.
Pillows, pillow filling. Healthy, deep sleep, people sleep on it. And mattresses are filled with it to prevent bedsores. For bedridden people, so that they don’t get bedsores. Buckwheat is like that… there are artificial mattresses. And these buckwheat ones – they adjust to the shape of a person’s body so that they don’t get bedsores.
Then there is rutin. Buckwheat contains rutin, a substance that is beneficial for blood vessels, strengthening them so that they do not break, and affecting their elasticity. Pharmacists use rutin. Ascorutin is a medicine for blood vessels.
Then it is also used as feed. In many countries, it is used as a feed crop. In America, in the United States of America, of course, there is a diverse population. But traditionally, local residents used it to feed cattle and horses.
Food products, you say bread. Bread, that is, the lack of gluten, so it is not used much in bread. Although now there are additives with buckwheat flour. There are breads with buckwheat flour. But not on a large scale. This is a segment of exotic products, so to speak.
Candy is made from buckwheat. And baby food. Buckwheat flour is used in large quantities for baby food. I remember my eldest son, born in 1993, when there were shortages of everything and inflation was high. He grew up on… I remember they made it somewhere in Poltava. Malysh was a manufacturer of buckwheat flour.
Baby food.
And now there are quick-cooking products, such as flakes that are steamed.
That’s how we mainly use buckwheat. But in other countries, they eat less buckwheat. In Japan and China, they eat more flour products. And France. Buckwheat is a common product in France, by the way.
I wanted to ask you, by the way, in which countries of the world is buckwheat eaten a lot, and where is it not popular at all?
– Well, if we’re talking about Europe, then maybe there. In Europe, if we’re talking about France, it’s a popular and common product – they make pancakes with it.
Poland, buckwheat is a common product there, just like it is here.
And Latvia. Latvia consumes the most buckwheat in the world. Almost 8 kilograms per person. In Latvia, they say, I haven’t been there, but those who often visit say that every restaurant serves green buckwheat. The most beneficial segments are in green, unsteamed buckwheat. They offer it in every restaurant.
The Benelux countries, as I said, do not eat it, it is not common there, it is used in medicine and sold in pharmacies. It is also not common in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and England.
The Balkan countries eat it, not a lot, but they eat it. The Turks eat a little. Israel eats it; they have a type of vermicelli called vernix. It is a national product. And Asia, China, Japan—they eat it there. As I said, the Japanese import the most. They grow very little themselves, but they import the most in the world. And Papua New Guinea—such a strange country, they eat a lot of it.
– How do power outages affect mills? Grain mills? Are generators, dryers, etc. used to compensate?
– It’s complicated. It’s a whole technological process, and power outages do have an impact. The main energy consumption in the preparation of groats is steaming. You need to heat water and steam to 128 degrees to steam the grain. And then it turns green. The groats we are used to are brown.
Housewives say fried buckwheat. Not fried, steamed. Buckwheat is not fried, buckwheat is steamed.
These are the main costs where energy is needed to be constantly available. Factories cope with this, and their production costs increase when they work on their own energy sources, but they cope.
The cost of grain is not the most significant factor in the cost of groats. It is the cost of grain. They account for the bulk of the cost. Energy sources account for up to 7% of the cost.
– I would also like to ask about state support. Which state support instruments are actually working for buckwheat, and which ones are perhaps lacking today?
– Unfortunately, there is no state support. But it is needed. Thanks to the lobbying efforts of our association, in 2021, 50 million hryvnias were allocated from the state budget to support agricultural enterprises that grew buckwheat. On average, buckwheat growers received 1,500 hryvnia in state subsidies for that money. That was in 2021.
A similar amount was included in the budget, well, not by us, but by the government, based on our lobbying for 2022, but the war changed these plans. The resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, which helps to distribute this money, is still in force, and it seems that it will remain in force for another year, but there is no funding, of course, with the war, we understand that.
But it is negative, this lack of any state support, it has a negative impact on the industry, because these swings, you see, are happening. This year, 60,000, even 59,000 hectares were harvested. And after the war, the start of the war, it was, I think, 120, in 2022, I think, 120 or something like that. Well, production volumes have fallen by almost half.
And the situation will not improve without state support. Here, state support is not so much significant in terms of figures, 1,000 UAH per hectare or 10,000 UAH per hectare in subsidies, as in terms of the factors themselves. That the state understands the problem and supports producers.
Because, as we said, buckwheat is grown by individual farmers and small farmers, and they cannot orient themselves. But when they see that the state will definitely help them for a year, two, or three, they will be able to plan their activities and count on this support. That is the significance of this support.
Another important influence of the state is the involvement of state structures in buckwheat cultivation. This is also not actually being used. We have a lot of land under state-owned enterprises. The Ministry of Education has experimental farms, the Ministry of Agriculture has experimental farms, the Ministry of Defense has its own land that is not being used but could be used. And the Agricultural Academy of Sciences, we have 400,000 hectares there, also sows little buckwheat. But it could use some obligations, the influence of the state on the formation of crop rotation to influence the cultivation… not only of buckwheat, but also of other valuable crops. We also sow little millet and rye. Black bread has already disappeared. Ukrainian black bread, classic bread, is no longer available here. All those baked goods with colored additives are not natural breads. And there is no rye, because we import it.
That is, there are many niche crops that could be stimulated, the state should stimulate them, but there is no such stimulus.
Is it advisable today to form a state reserve of buckwheat, and is it realistic to do so, given the current volumes of cultivation?
Good question. I want to explain from the other side. Look, going back to this Russian factor, Russia conquered Ukraine, Europe, and China. Why is it doing this? Well, business is a small business in buckwheat. It has overproduction. In recent years, it has had overproduction.
It has already accumulated about 1.5 million tons of surplus buckwheat, which no one has eaten and which it cannot sell anywhere. There is no public data. Where is it putting this volume of buckwheat? Most likely, it is putting it into strategic reserves. But now the question arises, why is it putting buckwheat into strategic reserves? It is preparing for war. And not just any war, but nuclear war.
Because buckwheat is the product on which the entire buckwheat industry was built in the 1970s thanks to this program. In the 1970s, there was a program to study buckwheat as a crop that could grow on land contaminated by nuclear radiation and as a product that could be consumed by humans. And the entire buckwheat industry in Ukraine developed thanks to this program. And this research was classified.
It was managed by the KGB, and they went to Moscow. And in Russia, they know these results, but we don’t. And Russia is doing it, it has knocked Ukraine out of the world, it is knocking out China, it is becoming the sole monopolist of grain in the world, where it can take it and provide for its own population. And with seeds to sow buckwheat and feed the population that will remain there.
And in the 1970s, this research was completed. And it was during that period, the so-called Cold War, when there was a confrontation between America, well, NATO, and the Soviet Union. I lived through that period, and I clearly remember how everyone was worried that there would be a war, a nuclear war. Until Brezhnev signed a couple of disarmament treaties in the late 1970s.
But in the permafrost zone, elevators were built, and buckwheat was stored there. It mutates, but in the second generation it recovers, it is already healthy, it can be grown.
And it can be sown twice a year. That is, in the first year, you can get it, and in a year, you can get healthy grain, in fact. It does not accumulate radionuclides very much; it extracts nuclides.
Therefore, based on this knowledge, Russia is most likely building up strategic reserves, and we need to build up strategic reserves of buckwheat. But no one cares about this.
