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Gathering Insights and Shaping the Future of the Balkan Grain Market

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The edition in 2024 has successfully fulfilled its mission to pinpoint and answer the challenges facing the grain and oilseeds sector

The 8th edition of the Grain Academy, held on October 31st in Varna on the scenic Black Sea coast, brought together over 300 participants from nearly 20 countries across the Balkans, Central, and Eastern Europe. With a dynamic agenda, the event featured panels addressing crucial topics ranging from global supply and demand for grains and oilseeds to an exclusive session on the Balkan market, insights on Bulgaria’s domestic sector, and critical discussions around fertilizers, climate impact, and shipping logistics.

"The conference served as a major platform to discuss and analyze the future of the grain industry, taking into account global challenges and emerging market trends," said Petar Dimitrov, Founder and Senior Broker at Agricore Bulgaria, organizer of the event. "We are grateful to our esteemed panelists, partners and attendees for their active participation and contribution to the success of the event."

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With great interest the participants listened to the intricate study of the fundamental factors on global and regional level by Benoit Fayaud (Strategie Grains) and Anna Platonova (Fastmarkets), who brilliantly summarized the outlook for grain and oilseed S&D in 2024/25. Experts predicted a slight increase in grain prices in the second half of the season due to the fact that in the Black Sea region wheat stocks will be slightly lower due to lower production in Russia and extremely active exports at the moment. Amid the drastic decline in sunflower production in the Black Sea, processing in Ukraine is expected to fall by 12% in 2024/25 and in Russia by 14%. The two countries together produce 60% of the world's sunflower oil and play a key role in setting global prices. Furthermore, Eddie Tofpik of ADM Investor Services delved deep into the realm of technical analytics and forecasted possible scenarios for price movements of international exchanges enriching this panel entitled "Market trends and S&D for 2024".

"Many challenges await us until the end of the season. We have huge market turbulence, price volatility, geopolitical risks, climate issues, which bring great uncertainty and to deal with these issues we need to be well informed," summarized Petar Dimitrov, Founder of Agricore.

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The second session of Grain Academy 2024 titled "Balkan countries - specifics of the region and opportunities" with moderator Deian Atanassov from Cargill Bulgaria provided valuable insights into the grain sector in the Balkans. The panelists described an almost identical picture for all Balkan countries – decent winter crops that allow the region to establish itself as a reliable supplier of quality wheat and barley, and disastrous maize and sunflower crops due to unfavorable climate. Proposed solutions to address the challenges centered around consolidating the industry and developing a unified strategy in business practices to ensure a sustainable and secure future in agribusiness.

"Bulgaria has become a stable exporter of wheat, with some countries in North Africa beginning to source up to 30% of their wheat from our country. This means we have the opportunity to become a serious and reliable supplier to these countries", said Deian Atanasov, Senior Merchant at Cargill Bulgaria adding: "Another opportunity for the Bulgarian market is the processing of oilseed crops. Local processors have serious capacity for processing, which we hope will have a positive impact of prices and present more opportunities for the local farmers."

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The first afternoon session titled "The Great Talk for the Bulgarian Grain Industry" returned with an Episode 2, pointing the attention of the audience to the Bulgarian grain sector. Peter Kirovski from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food emphasized that digitization is the next necessary step to facilitate the grain business through more up-to-date and timely data on production and trade, which will enable more successful planning by businesses as well as government policies in the sector . In the course of the lively discussion from various representatives of the agricultural sector, it became clear that the business is experiencing its most difficult year. It is now much more difficult to overcome bad decisions compared to previous years. The panelists were unanimous - now only those who manage to adapt and are persistent will continue to prosper.

"The challenges in grain production and trade are very serious indeed. Farmers have to adapt to these conditions that are present for a second year in a row - a severe drought and extremely unfavorable conditions for spring crops, while outlooks for winter crops are mcuh better," said Petar Dimitrov, Founder of Grain Academy and AgroPortal.

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The closing session of the 8th edition presented the participants with the opportunity to learn more about the volatile fertilizer markets, which are still struggling with the effects war and geopolitics. According to Ofelia Nalbant from LAT Nitrogen, Europe needs to avoid redirecting its dependence on Russian gas with dependance on Russian fertilizers and food, but the facts remain – Europe is importing more and more fertilizers, mainly from Russia, and this is likely to continue. The global and regional climate conditions were presented by Natalja Skuratovic from EarthDaily Agro, who emphasized that with the advancement of technology, it will soon be possible to predict the weather more accurately and in the longer term for the benefit of agricultural producers. Yavor Velchev from Shippossible moderated this panel entitled "Fertilizers, Climate and Logistics - Risks and Prospects" and skillfully explained what the logistic risks are in the trade of agricultural goods in the Black Sea and how to avoid them.

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Responding to challenges with dialogue, exchange of visions and expertise

The 8th edition of the conference once again provided a platform for dialogue and exchange of ideas and expertise on the future of agribusiness. This was further reinforced by the parallel program of the event, where participants had the opportunity to participate in two training seminars to develop their knowledge and skills further:
- "Principles and Practice of commodity price risk management" by StoneX
- "The human factor in grain trading: optimizing profit through negotiation techniques" by Agxecutive

Grain Academy 2024 received positive feedback from all participants and successfully fulfilled its mission to bring together the most authoritative experts and leaders from the agricultural sector to discuss the current challenges and collectively propose answers benefiting everyone in the agribusiness - farmers, traders, millers, crushers, processors, logistics, surveyors, charterers, industry associations and more.

"Grain Academy 2024 became an exceptional event that not only addressed crucial industry topics, but also highlighted the need for professional and effective dialogue in the complex environment of the grain industry," said Petar Dimitrov, Founder and Senior Broker at Agricore, organizer of the event "Global events - geopolitical turbulence and climate change - require us to be more flexible, more innovative and more united. We are convinced that with joint efforts and the exchange of experience and information we will find ways to cope with the challenges ahead."

Thank you to all the speakers, sponsors, partners and participants who made this conference an unforgettable experience. We look forward to continuing the journey of shaping the future of global grain markets together.

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