Posted on September, 11, 2024 at 12:03 am
Ukrainian farmers have sown 105,200 hectares of winter grains for the 2025 harvest as of Sept. 9, or 2% of the expected area, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry said the area included 101,100 hectares of winter wheat and 3,700 hectares of winter barley.
The ministry gave no comparative data while it reported last year that farmers sowed 44,800 hectares of winter grains, or 0.9% of the expected area, as of Sept. 12, 2023.
Winter wheat generally accounts for 95% of overall Ukrainian wheat output each year.
The ministry has said the 2025 winter wheat area is seen at 4.7 million hectares but Ukrainian farmers could increase the winter wheat sowing area to more than 5 million hectares to compensate for a decline in the winter rapeseed area.
An industry source said the area under rapeseed could fall by 500,000 hectares because of continuing drought across most of the country.
Record high temperatures and a lack of rain almost throughout Ukraine in recent months have created unfavourable conditions for sowing winter crops, particularly rapeseed.
The ministry data showed that farms had sown 534,700 hectares of rapeseed as of Sept. 9, or 47.6% of the expected area of 1.12 million hectares. Farmers sowed 88,000 hectares of rapeseed in the last 6 days.
Ukraine has completed the 2024 wheat harvest, threshing 21.8 million tons of the commodity, compared with more than 22 million tons in 2023.
Source: XM