ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS — Louis Dreyfus Company will cease grain export operations from Russia on July 1 at the start of the new trading season, the global agribusiness said April 3. The move comes after Cargill and Viterra said they also would drop export activities in Russia.

“Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) will cease grain exports from Russia from July 1, 2023, as grain export challenges continue to increase in the country and is also assessing options for the transfer to new owners of its existing Russian business and grain assets,” the Rotterdam, Netherlands-based company said. “LDC will continue to run its operations in Russia until the process is complete, in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

Most international grain traders have stopped new investment in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, but continued shipping Russian wheat. Russia’s agriculture ministry said it had received notice from Louis Dreyfus Vostok (East) that it would cease handling Russian grain exports. It said the move would not affect the volume of Russian grain exports. Russia accounts for about 17% of the world’s wheat export market.

LDC employs about 650 people in Russia, where it focuses on wheat, barley and corn exports, alongside smaller scale sugar product distribution operations. On average, LDC exports 1.5 million to 3 million tonnes of grains annually from Russia. Products sourced from Russia and Ukraine made up 2% of LDC’s group sales last year, versus less than 4% the prior year, the company said when it presented its 2022 results on March 22.

LDC operates several offices and seven inland silos in Russia that total about 900,000 tonnes of storage and a grain export terminal on the Don River with access to the Sea of Azov that it acquired in 2015. The terminal was inaugurated in May 2017 and has an annual capacity of about 1 million tonnes with 50,000 tonnes of storage in 10 vertical silos. LDC also operates a riverside elevator in Volgograd that allows grain exports along the Volga River and down to the Caspian Sea.

International grain trading firms Cargill and Viterra last week announced they would no longer handle Russian grain exports, although Cargill’s shipping unit has said it will continue to carry grain from the country’s ports and Viterra’s local management team aims to form a new trading firm.