Romania warns corn exports may slump as drought shrinks harvest

Major European grains shipper Romania warned that it could export much less corn and sunflowers this season as it prioritizes local supplies after drought battered harvests.

The country was by far the European Union’s biggest corn exporter last season, but output will probably slump significantly this year after dryness destroyed harvests in several parts of the country, Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said in an interview Tuesday.

The country will only export what’s left after safeguarding domestic supplies, said Daea, who declined to give details on any potential measures the government could take. Unfavorable weather has combined with the war in the breadbasket nation of Ukraine to tighten global crop supplies, prompting a wave of food protectionism as officials try to limit the impact of soaring prices.

Romania has lagged behind in rolling out irrigation systems and faces a growing problem as climate change makes extreme weather more frequent. For now, with dryness forecast in the coming days, some farmers are collecting corn earlier than usual to salvage what they can for use as animal feed and to make biofuel, Daea said.

“This year the situation is very complicated,” he said. “We intervened as much as we could and maximized the levels of irrigation, but in many areas that’s not possible, so a big part of the harvest is impacted.”

Romania exported 4.3 million tons of corn last season and was the second-biggest shipper of sunflower seed. It’s also a major wheat and barley supplier. The nation briefly curbed grain exports at the start of the Covid pandemic.

Its corn production had been estimated at about 14 million tons at start of the year, but farmers have since cut the outlook to 8 million tons, Ziarul Financiar reported this week, citing growers’ groups.

Water-storage levels are also an issue, with Danube river levels about half of the multiyear average for this time of year and other waterways drying up. More than 200 Romanian towns and villages have restricted water use, the National Water Administration says. 

The ruling coalition wants to ask the EU to agree to introduce some irrigation projects in its already-approved recovery and resilience fund, according to Social Democratic leader Marcel Ciolacu.