Below is a summary of grain commodity seaborne trade which can be quite useful for the ICS exam. And cargo is the heart of many subjects starting from Intro to Shipping, Economics towards Dry Cargo Charterting this can help in preparing for multiple subjects at the same time.

Grain Volume:

Grain is one of the Major Bulk commodities in seaborne trade and rest of the two being irone ore and coal. Total seaborne  trade carried by dry bulk cargo ships are around 5.5 billion MT(Millon Tonnes) of which Grain encompasses around 500 MT which is nearly 10% of total dry cargo seaborne trade.

Grain Commodities:

Grain for seaborne transportations means Wheat, Soybeans, Coarse Grain (Corn, Barley, Sorghum, Oats and Rye) as described in various reports and databases.

Grain Export Import Regions:

The Major Exporters are from both North and South America namely, USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and also from EU, UK, Russia and Ukrain. A significant portion is also exported from Australia.

Among the importing countries mostly from FarEast Asia and also from Africa and the Middle East. Number one is as can be guessed China, then comes Japan and Korea. The populated countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh are also in the list. Turkey , Iran and Egypt also imports significant amount of grain commodities. South American countries such as Mexico and Colombia among others import significant amount of grain in that region.

Ship types:

the parcel size of grain commodity ranges from Handysize to Panamax vessels in general. So grain demand has impact on those two vessel types in general.

Recent issues:

 the railyway strike in Canada, port workers strike in the USA, drought issue in the Missisipi river and Panama canal are some of the issues recently impacted seaborne grain trade. Also tendency of dry bulk ships to avoid Suez Canal due to Red Sea crisis increased tonne mile of the sector. Ukraine and Russia are among two of the major players in the grain seaborne trade, and recently Russia has started exporting grain from occupied areas to new destinations such as Venezuela which created a lot of controversy, but for shipping it can be considered a new market. And Ukraine export level reaching pre war level along with good US production forecast indicating good future for the grain seaborne trade.