The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has announced the completion of the sowing campaign, with the forecast for spring grains and pulses exceeded by 4% to 5.672 million hectares.
According to the Ministry’s website, this is 8.5% less than last year and 25.1% less than in pre-war 2021.
Sunflower and soybean plantings amounted to 5.307 mln ha and 1.779 mln ha, respectively, down 5.9% and 3.3% from the March forecast. At the same time, they exceeded last year’s figures, in particular, by 12.9% for sunflower and 46.8% for soybeans.
It is specified that in 2023, the agrarians exceeded the forecasted plantings of peas and corn by 16% and 12%, respectively, having allocated 139.3 thou hectares and 4.043 mln ha for them. The amount of peas planted was 6.3% higher compared to last year, while corn was 12.8% lower.
This year’s buckwheat planting plan was exceeded by 5% to 120.7 thou hectares, and the growth was 60.3% compared to the previous year.
The area under oats is also 2% higher than expected – 150.1 thou hectares, but 5.8% lower than last year.
Farmers slightly missed the forecasts for spring wheat, for which 280 thou hectares were allocated (98% of the plan). However, the area under it is 46.5% higher than in 2022 and 59.1% higher than in pre-war 2021, as winter wheat was sown much less.
The forecast for the current year for spring barley sowing was also not fulfilled, with farmers planting 821.9 thou hectares (79% of the plan), which is 13.6% lower than last year. The situation is the same with millet, under which 51.1 thou hectares were planted, which was 85% of the plan, but it is 3.2% higher than last year.
As reported, this season winter wheat plantings amounted to 4166 thou hectares (-834 thou hectares compared to the previous season), winter barley – 536 thou hectares (-255 thou hectares), and rapeseed – 1374 thou hectares (+110 thou hectares).
At the end of March, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy predicted that in 2023 the planted areas of grains and pulses will amount to 10.24 mln ha, down 1.4 mln ha from 2022, while the area under oilseeds will increase by 0.92 mln ha to 8.85 mln ha.
