Agroholding “Kernel”, one of the largest in Ukraine, with a record yield completes harvesting of early grain crops, under which 70 thousand hectares are allocated, the press service of the agroholding reported.
“This year’s winter wheat yield, depending on the region of the cluster location, was from 5.8 to 7.3 tons/ha. The weighted average yield is almost 70% higher than last year’s figure,” the agroholding said on Facebook.
According to “Kernel”, on the post-harvest areas are implemented programs of biologization of farming. To support biodiversity and improve soil fertility, cover crops have already been sown on 22 thousand hectares.
It is noted that agronomic divisions of the agroholding continue to test and research the effectiveness of using different mixtures of cover crops to assess their impact on physical and chemical characteristics, microbiological activity of soil and phytosanitary condition of fields.
Before the war, Kernel Agro Holding ranked first in the world in sunflower oil production (about 7% of world production) and exports (about 12%). It is one of the largest producers and sellers of bottled oil in Ukraine. In addition, it is engaged in growing agricultural products and their realization.
The largest co-owner of Kernel through Namsen Ltd. – is Ukrainian businessman Andriy Verevsky, who this year increased his stake from 41.3% to 74.05% as part of the buyout and delisting of the agroholding from the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Kernel’s net profit for the first nine months of FY 2023 (July-2022-March 2023) rose 36% to $437 mln, while revenue fell 45% to $2.715 bln.
Ukrainian farmers since the beginning of the harvesting campaign as of July 23 had harvested 14.1 million tonnes (8.6 million tonnes more per week from July 19 to July 23) of grain and leguminous crops from an area of 3.4 million hectares (22% from the forecast).
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, in the context of crops, the following were threshed: winter barley – 5 million tonnes from an area of 1.9 million hectares (48% of the total area under this crop), winter wheat – 8.86 million tonnes from 2.68 million hectares (30%), peas – 240,000 tonnes from 110,000 hectares (47%).
According to the portal, the yield of the harvested winter barley was 41.8 centners/ha, winter wheat – 42.8 centners/ha, peas – 22.1 centners/ha.
The portal clarified that the leaders in harvesting since the beginning of the harvesting campaign are Kherson (the harvest was threshed from 69% of the area), Mykolaiv (60%), Luhansk (44%), Donetsk (39%) and Odesa (29%) regions.
As reported, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food predicts the harvest of grain and leguminous crops in the 2021/2022 marketing year at the level of 75.8 million tonnes, exports may reach 56 million tonnes.
The analytical agency UkrAgroConsult predicts a wheat harvest of 25.9 million tonnes for 2020 with exports of 17.5 million tonnes and a corn harvest of 36 million tonnes with exports of 29 million tonnes.
“The assessment of export potential for wheat is quite consolidated – 17.5 million tonnes, this figure is fixed in a memorandum, an appendix to which has been recently signed. In any case, exports will be about 3 million tonnes lower than last year,” the UkrAgroConsult export for the grain market, Yelyzaveta Malyshko, said during the Black Sea Grain & Oil Trade 2020 international conference in Kyiv.
According to her, the start of the wheat export season was impressive, for example, from July 1 to August 28, some 4.16 million tonnes of wheat were exported, which is the highest figure for this period in the previous years.
“Now active export contributes to the fact that domestic prices for wheat in September are about $ 30 higher than last year and the demand remains. Expectations in this regard are quite optimistic. Forwards for December are now showing $ 225, but we cannot exclude autumn price deflection after the arrival of Canadian and then Australian wheat crop,” the expert said.
UkrAgroConsult’s estimate of the corn harvest for this year is 36 million tonnes.
The expert noted price expectations for corn are optimistic, however, a decrease in prices during the period of active harvesting cannot be ruled out.
Ukraine as of July 25 had threshed 20 million tonnes of early grain and leguminous crops from 6.3 million hectares (65% of the forecast for these crops) with the yield being 31.9 centners per ha.
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, farmers harvested 15 million tonnes of winter wheat from 4.4 million hectares (70% of the forecast) with the yield of 34.2 centners/ha, 37,000 tonnes of spring wheat from 16,000 hectares (9%) with a yield of 23 centners/ha, 2.9 million tonnes of winter barley from 816,000 hectares (99%) with the yield being 35.1 centners per ha, 1.3 million tonnes of spring barley from 628,000 hectares (41%) with a yield of 19.9 centners/ha, and 541,000 tonnes of peas from 319,000 hectares (75%) with a yield of 17 centners/ha.
The country also harvested 67,000 tonnes of rye from 27,500 hectares (19%) with a yield of 24.5 centners/ha and 16,000 tonnes of oats from 9,300 hectares (5%) with a yield of 17.5 centners/ha.
In addition, farmers threshed 2.3 million tonnes of winter rapeseeds from 902,000 hectares (92%) with a yield of 25.8 centners per ha and 11,000 tonnes of spring rapeseeds from 7,500 hectares (14%) with the yield standing at 15 centners/ha.
