Ukraine's corn output nears half the EU total as French growers resist accession

Ukraine produced almost 31 million tonnes of corn in 2025, close to half of the roughly 60 million tonnes grown across the entire European Union, according to BFMTV. As Brussels reopens membership talks with Kyiv, French maize producers are warning that the accession of such an agricultural heavyweight could destabilise the European sector.

Ukraine's rise as a corn power

Over 25 years, Ukrainian corn production has multiplied eightfold while the cultivated area has tripled, said Olivier Antoine, director of the consultancy ORAE Geopolitique and author of a report on Ukrainian grain commissioned by France's General Association of Maize Producers (AGPM). The country has "positioned itself among the world's leading producers, but above all among the leading exporters," he said.

The war has largely spared the crop. The central regions, far from the fighting and free of Russian occupation, remain the largest production zones, Antoine noted. France alone grew about 13 million tonnes in 2025, a fraction of Ukraine's output.

Trade flows and the tariff-free quota

Ukraine is heavily export-oriented, shipping three quarters of its production to international markets. Almost half of those exports now go to the European Union, making Ukraine by far the bloc's leading foreign supplier despite the duties applied to Ukrainian goods at the EU border. Under its association agreement with the EU, Kyiv benefits from a duty-free quota of 650,000 tonnes of corn, which is due to be raised to 1 million tonnes.

French growers push back

"We are watching very closely" what happens with the integration process, AGPM president Franck Laborde told a press conference. The association complains of unequal production conditions between the two sides:

• lower production costs
• the use of plant-protection products banned in the EU
• looser agricultural regulations
• very large farms run by agro-holdings

"We are in severe competition distortion" with Ukraine because "we are now playing by different rules," said Benoit Laborde, head of the AGPM's seeds section, adding that Ukrainian seed-corn imports into France and Europe have become very significant over the past two years. The industry is also concerned by Ukraine's ambition to accelerate its processing sector, since it currently exports mainly raw grain.

A distant and contested accession

The AGPM put forward its own estimate of the consequences of Ukrainian membership. ORAE Geopolitique drew up three scenarios: a status quo with a stabilised front and unresolved conflict; a resolved conflict leading to EU entry by 2030; and a resolved conflict producing a pro-Russian government. Under the second scenario, in which the war stops immediately and Ukraine joins the EU fully in 2030, Ukrainian production could reach 39 million tonnes. In that case, the AGPM says 2.9 million tonnes of French corn would be "in danger", translating into a loss of 663 million euros in turnover.

Such a timeline looks highly hypothetical. The EU formally resumed accession negotiations in mid-June after Hungary lifted its veto, and member states approved the opening of a first group of five negotiation chapters out of 35, with enlargement commissioner Marta Kos saying five more could open before the summer. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said he wants Ukraine in the EU by 2030. But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote in late May that the process could not be completed in the near future, and, according to BFMTV, Hungary's Peter Magyar said membership would not be possible for another 10 to 15 years. Ukrainian farm organisations have asked for a ten-year transition period after accession to align local law with EU rules, Agra Presse reported, an exception Brussels has never granted and that France in particular would likely oppose.