“Romanian new crop barley looks more attractive compared to Ukrainian barley, which is currently offered at around $230/mt FOB POC with delivery in July,” Latifundist quoted Daria Marchenko, trade advisor at ASAP Agri and broker at Atria Brokers, as saying.” .
Romania could harvest about 3 million tons of barley in 2026, according to the European Commission. Although lower than last year’s harvest, this is well above that country’s long-term average production level. Accordingly, the significant barley resource of the 2026 harvest will provide Romania with a strong position on export markets.
Moldova is not a competitor?
In Moldova, according to the preliminary assessment of specialists of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry MAIA, the area of winter barley sown for the harvest-2026 has decreased compared to the indicators of previous agricultural seasons (40-50 thousand hectares) by about 15-20%. Accordingly, even taking into account satisfactory and even good condition of crops at the moment, the harvest of this grain is likely to be lower than last year.
Earlier, Logos Press reported that in the season 2025/26 (from July to February) almost 127 thousand tons of barley were exported from Moldova – it is by 4.3% more compared to the same period of the previous season (122 thousand tons). Moreover, the average price for barley of the 2025 harvest (average 3.60 lei/kg) exceeded the average price for wheat.
“In the new marketing season, this rare situation may be repeated,” Iurie Rija, director of the Association of Grain Producers and Exporters Agrocereale, told Logos Press. – Probably, due to the predicted relatively modest commodity resource of barley of the harvest-2026, its average price may again be about 1 leu/kg higher than the price of wheat”.
Probably, in a situation when the regional market of the (western) Black Sea region is in the midst of quite fierce competition between sellers of Romanian and Ukrainian barley, Moldovan grain traders are unlikely to benefit from traditional foreign markets. Market operators believe that with a relatively high forecasted “offer price” of Moldovan barley of the new harvest, it will most likely not be possible to maintain the trend for moderate growth of its exports, which was outlined in previous years.
It can be assumed that Moldovan grain producers will try to sell most of the marketable barley of the new crop to local livestock breeders. That is, to get a higher price by reducing logistics costs, including the “transportation shoulder”.
