Ukraine's grain exports totalled 3.62 million tonnes in April compared with 923,000 tonnes in April 2022 when all the country's Black Sea ports were blocked due to the Russian invasion, Ukrainian farm ministry data showed on Monday.

Access to three Ukrainian Black Sea ports in Odesa region was cleared at the end of last July under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

The ministry said overall grain exports for the 2022/23 season stood at 41.6 million tonnes as of May 1, including about 14.4 million tonnes of wheat, 24.4 million tonnes of corn and about 2.5 million tonnes of barley.

The data showed that Ukraine exported 45.9 million tonnes of grain in the same period in the 2021/22 season.

A major grain grower and exporter, Ukraine's grain output dropped to about 53 million tonnes in clean weight in the 2022 calendar year from a record 86 million tonnes in 2021.

Officials have blamed the fall on hostilities in the country's eastern, northern and southern regions.

The government has said Ukraine can harvest 44.3 million tonnes of grain or even up to 50 million tonnes in 2023 if the weather is favourable. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten Donovan)