Ukraine in terms of the total area of crops in the current season is lagging behind compared to last year’s figures, the lag depending on the crop is from 20% to 30%, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solsky said at a briefing at the Ukrainian Media Center on Monday.
“The quality of crops is significantly worse compared to previous years for obvious reasons. This is already very bad for world markets and even worse in the medium or long term,” he added.
According to the minister, in addition to the military invasion of the Russian Federation, the course of the sowing season is negatively affected by a number of factors, primarily logistical ones.
“The sowing campaign in Ukraine is quite active. There are understandable difficulties, primarily with logistics. Farmers and agricultural enterprises spend less money on basic things – seeds, herbicides. They save as much as possible, given the interruptions in diesel. Obviously, there are losses in time, let’s call it that, because the curfew, the movement of equipment, some equipment went to the front, there are also fewer people left,” Solsky specified.
According to him, there are difficulties with the storage of agricultural products and fuel. The combination of these factors leads to both a decrease in the volume of agricultural products produced and a deterioration in its quality.
As reported, during the sowing season-2022, by May 5, Ukraine sowed 7.1 million hectares of land with the main agricultural crops, which is 49.3% of the 14.4 million hectares planned for the current season. During the week of April 28 – May 5, 2.71 million hectares were sown.
According to the data published on its website, as of May 5, the area under sunflower crops is 2.4 million hectares (+1.03 million hectares per week), corn – 1.98 million hectares (sowing started this week), spring barley – 853.8 thousand hectares (sowing completed), spring wheat – 186.1 thousand hectares (+10.3 thousand hectares), oats – 153.5 thousand hectares (+9.5 thousand hectares), peas – 116.3 thousand ha (+3.3 thousand ha).
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said on April 20 that Ukraine will sow approximately 14.2 million hectares of agricultural land this season, which is 80% of last year’s figure of 16.9 million hectares.
