European Union imports of corn have trended upwards since 2000

The European Union (EU) currently imports little corn from the United States, but since 2000, imports of corn by member countries of the EU have been rising, therefore increasing the prospect of future U.S. corn shipments to the EU. The import growth has been driven mainly by rising demand for animal feed, with feed use in 2018/19 rising to 68 percent of total EU corn supply (production and stocks plus imports), and surpassing total domestic production. One cause of the growing corn feed use is that the EU is substituting corn for wheat in its animal feed rations, shifting feed wheat into export channels. Much of the imported corn is coming from the Black Sea region—mainly Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, Russia. Ukraine has been rapidly expanding its production and export capacity, and has joined the United States, Brazil, and Argentina among the four largest corn exporters. This chart is drawn from Economic Research Service’s Feed Outlook, released in April 2020.