In our July Market Report we described a European soya crop under pressure. Repeated heatwaves and limited rainfall in June and July weakened yield prospects across large parts of western and central Europe; the JRC MARS bulletin of 27 July cut the 2026 EU soya yield forecast to 2.62 t/ha — 5 % below its June estimate and 6 % below 2025 — and Donau Soja revised its own EU-27 forecast down to 1.04 million hectares and around 2.77 million tonnes, with the sharpest losses expected in Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and France.

Ukraine’s national outlook remains comparatively positive, but conditions there are uneven: northern and central regions have had good moisture, while the western regions that traditionally supply non-GM beans to the EU still carry a soil moisture deficit after an exceptionally dry spring. With European availability this tight, what Ukraine actually harvests matters more than usual.

That is why Donau Soja is going back into the field. In August 2026, we carried out the Donau Soja Crop Tour Ukraine. Fields were selected at random and walked by our agronomists, and yield potential is read from the crop itself — plant development, pod set, nodulation, disease and pest pressure.

We scouted the main soya regions and prepared our own pre-harvest yield estimation. The results will be published in a Special Edition of the Donau Soja Market Report in September 2026.