In Ukraine the corn harvest of 2022 remains unharvested from 15% of the area, so because of the wintering of part of the crop in the fields its quality will be much worse than in a more favorable 2021.
The head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Foodstuffs of Ukraine Mykola Solsky said at a briefing in Kiev on Monday that the final quality of corn harvested in 2022 will be judged in February, after the end of its harvesting.
“Day by day its (unharvested corn – IF-U) quality worsens. Of course, farmers, elevator operators and traders know how to work with it and level out the quality indicators. However, compared with last year (2021 – IF-U) the quality will be much worse. We will be able to say exactly how much worse at the end of February, because significant amounts of corn remain in the fields,” the minister said.
Solsky recalled that by the beginning of last year’s winter corn was not harvested from one-third of the area, while now this figure is about half as much, but it is still too much.
“We have a much worse crop this year because for a number of reasons we have entered a prolonged harvest, which in itself is quite difficult: severe temperature fluctuations prevent farmers from working and damage the quality of grain. I think the percentage of losses, depending on the farmer, can be from a few percent to 15%. It depends on the type of corn, moisture content, with which he “came in” at the beginning of the frost, the current temperature drop,” – the Minister explained.
Earlier Minagropolitiki reported that by January 13, Ukraine harvested a total of 23.5 million tons of corn from 3.6 million hectares, including 1.4 million tons of corn from 0.2 million hectares during the week of January 6-13. 15% of the planned areas are not harvested.
As reported, Ukraine in 2021 harvested a record crop of cereals, legumes and oilseeds at 106 million tons: 84 million tons of cereals and legumes (including 40 million tons of corn), and 22.6 million tons of oilseeds.
