Ships carrying Bulgarian maize are heading for southern Europe with shipments that should total some 86,000 tonnes by the end of the month, traders said on Monday.
Major trading houses are rushing to export Bulgarian maize to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Cyprus by the end of October to meet the deadline for shipments under the Balkan State's 87,000-tonne, tariff-free maize export quota to the EU.
But with heavy rain over the last week, exporters are now worrying whether they have enough time to dry the maize and load it on time. "Everything depends on the rain. Right now it is raining in (the Black Sea port) Varian.
But the forecast is for sunny weather. The deadline will be met if the weather allows it," said Stefan Ebner, a Varian-based trader at Dominion Grain. A major trading house is in the process of loading some 25,000 tonnes of maize at Varian to export to Spain, data from the port showed.
The company will ship another two loads of a combined 15,000 tonnes to the European Union through Romania in the coming days. That maize is being loaded at two Danube River ports.
Another 35,000 tonnes will exported to Spain, Italy and Cyprus by the end of the month, while two ships, carrying a total of 11,130 tonnes of maize are already on their way to Italy, an industry source told Reuters.
Good weather conditions this year boosted the 2004 maize harvest. With 20 percent of the crop collected, both traders and farm ministry officials forecast a record haul of up to 2.0 million tonnes, nearly double last year's 1.1 million tonnes.
"The yield so far has been triple that of last year. We have fields with 7 to 10 tonnes per hectare, from an average 3.1 tonnes per hectare in 2003," Ebara said.
Agricultural experts expect a 30 percent rise in yields to 4.0 -4.3 tonnes per hectare from the 315,000 hectares planted by farmers this year and said up to 500,000 tonnes would be available for export.
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