All Ukrainian regions have started 2024 sowing and had seeded 852,100 hectares of spring crops as of April 5, the country’s agriculture ministry said. Farmers have also started planting sunflowers, sugar beets and soybeans.
The sowing area includes 118,300 hectares of spring wheat, 543,200 of spring barley, 119,000 of peas and 62,400 of oats.
The ministry said farmers could sharply increase the area sown with soybeans this year to 2.199 million ha from 1.780 million in 2023 because soybeans were almost the only profitable crop in 2023.
Read Also
Trump calls off trade talks with Canada
U.S. president announced that trade talks with Canada are ‘hereby terminated’ over social media Oct. 23. Move comes after Ontario ad invoking former president Ronald Reagan.
Farmers might also reduce corn area by 4.5 per cent to 3.863 million ha from the 4.043 million sown in 2023.
The ministry said farmers had sown 58,700 ha to sugar beets, 35,700 to sunflowers and 1,600 to soybeans as of April 5.
Ukraine grain exports at 36 million tonnes so far
Ukraine’s grain exports in the 2023-24 July-June marketing season had fallen to around 36 million tonnes as of April 5 from 38.5 million a year earlier, agriculture ministry data shows.
Exports so far this season have included 14.2 million tonnes of wheat, 19.5 million tonnes of corn and 1.97 million tonnes of barley.
Ukraine has traditionally sent around 95 per cent of its grain exports via its deep water Black Sea ports.
The Ukrainian government expects a harvest of 81.3 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds in 2023, with a 2023-24 exportable surplus of about 50 million tonnes.
