Ukrainian farmers are unlikely to lower the realm of winter wheat they sow for the 2024 harvest regardless of larger logistics prices as a result of wartime export disaster, a senior agriculture official informed Reuters on Tuesday.
Ukraine is a serious wheat producer and the demise of the Black Sea hall used to soundly export grain in the course of the battle spurred hypothesis that farmers might sow much less wheat due to shrinking revenue margins resulting from costlier export routes.
On Monday, the agriculture ministry quoted survey knowledge as exhibiting that farmers might certainly lower the realm of winter wheat sowing whereas growing the realm of winter rapeseed for 2024 to a file excessive degree.
However, First Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskiy informed Reuters on Tuesday that the attainable discount of winter wheat might whole solely 0.1%.
“Wheat not significantly – minus 0.1%,” he stated. The estimate has not beforehand been reported.
An anticipated discount within the total winter grain sowing space would come on the expense of different grains, he stated, forecasting a drop of 5.4% in barley sowing this winter.
Ukraine sowed about 4.1 million hectares of winter wheat for the 2023 harvest, whereas the realm below winter barley stood at round 615,000 hectares.
Ukraine is a conventional grower of winter wheat, which accounts for no less than 95% of the nation’s total wheat output.
Farmers have already accomplished the 2023 wheat harvest, threshing 21.94 million metric tons. The harvest totaled 20.7 million tons in 2022.
The ministry has given no forecast for the entire 2024 sowing space however stated the general winter crop sowing space might rise by 0.5 million hectares, or 8%, in comparison with the earlier season.
Traders say a rise within the sowing space of winter crops, particularly in winter oilseeds, might imply that farmers sow much less spring grain crops, with corn and spring barley most probably to undergo.
Ukraine can at present export restricted volumes via small river ports on the Danube and by way of its western land border with the European Union.
That pressured native producers to regulate their sowing plans in 2023 and swap from grain crops to oilseeds, that are dearer however produce much less quantity.
Ukraine already diminished its sowing space for corn in favor of sunflowers in 2023.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
