Agro-industrial holding Astarta, the largest sugar producer in the country, has completed harvesting of early grain crops on the area of 57 thousand hectares and harvested 330 thousand tons of total winter and spring crops, including 271 thousand tons of winter wheat and 56 thousand tons of rape, the press service of the agricultural holding reported.
According to the report, the average yield of winter wheat amounted to 6.3 tons/ha, which is 33% higher than last year’s figures. The maximum average yield was obtained by agrofirm “Khmelnytske” of Vinnitsa region – 7.4 t/ha on the area of 6000 hectares, and on the area of 1350 hectares the yield reached 8.4 t/ha.
In addition, the enterprises of the agricultural holding threshed 56 thousand tons of winter rape, with a record average yield for the last five years – 4.1 t/ha. The maximum indicator of over 5 tons per hectare on the area of 1310 hectares was obtained on the fields of agrofirm “Poltavazernoprodukt” in Poltava region.
Agroholding also in early August began sowing campaign of winter crops for the harvest of 2024. 12 thousand hectares are allocated for rape, the sowing of which is already being completed, and 54 thousand hectares for winter wheat.
Preparations for harvesting soybeans, sunflower, corn, and sugar beets continue.
“Astarta” is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agricultural farms with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In the first half of 2023, Astarta’s revenue from sales of key products increased by 64.8% year-on-year to UAH 10.72 bln. The main contribution was made by sales of sugar – UAH 3.27 bln, which increased by 75.5%, corn – UAH 2.66 bln (+53.2%) and soybean meal – UAH 1.96 bln (+84.5%).
Ukrainian farmers sowed 101.9 thousand hectares of grain and legumes last week, compared to 120.5 thousand hectares the previous week and 207.3 thousand hectares the week before, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy reported on Friday.
According to the Ministry, the area under spring grains and pulses reached 722.4 thou hectares, or 7% of the planned 10.24 mln ha for 2023.
As noted, the pace of sowing is significantly lower than a year earlier, when as of April 8, 1.94 million hectares of land were sown with major crops, which was 14.4% of the 13.44 million hectares planned for sowing.
It is noted that since the beginning of the sowing campaign, spring wheat plantings have reached 142.8 thousand hectares (126.7 thousand hectares a week earlier), spring barley – 436 thousand hectares (376.6 thousand hectares), peas – 84.7 thousand hectares (73.1 thousand hectares) and oats – 53.6 thousand hectares (41.3 thousand hectares), millet – 0.7 thousand hectares (0.2 thousand hectares).
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the leaders in field work with grains and legumes are farmers of Volyn region – 19 thou hectares. It adds that sugar beet sowing has started in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky and Cherkasy regions, and the sown area reached 32.7 thou hectares (25.6 thou hectares a week earlier).
Sunflower is being sown by farmers in Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, where the planted areas reached 37.2 thou hectares (21 thou hectares a week earlier).
Corn sowing has started in Sumy region, with the area under the crop reaching 0.7 thou hectares.
According to the Ministry’s forecast, in 2023, the area under grains and pulses will amount to 10.24 mln ha, down 1.4 mln ha from 2022. The area under the main oilseeds may be increased, in particular, under sunflower – 5.64 mln ha (+ 476 thsd ha), rapeseed – 1.37 mln ha (+ 110 thsd ha), soybeans – 1.84 mln ha (+ 334 thsd ha). At the same time, the sugar beet area is expected to recover to the pre-war level – up to 220 thou hectares, compared to 180 thou hectares in 2022 and 226 thou hectares in 2021.
The forecasted areas of sowing main spring crops for the harvest of 2023 on the territory controlled by Ukraine as of March 9, 2023, is 5.7 million hectares, which is 206.5 thousand hectares, or 3.4% less than last year.
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food on Friday, in Ukraine spring grain and leguminous crops have already been sown 16.1 thousand hectares, or 0.2% of the planned volume.
The Ministry specified that by March 9, only Odesa region started sowing spring crops, while on the same date last year in Ukraine has not yet started sowing. Thus, all categories of farms in the region sowed 16.1 thousand hectares of cereals and leguminous crops, including 6.7 thousand hectares of spring wheat, 5.9 thousand hectares of spring barley and 3.5 thousand hectares of peas.
As reported, during sowing season 2022, Ukraine sowed 14.16 million hectares of major crops, which is 83.7% of the 2021 level of 16.92 million hectares. Overall, 95% of the planned areas were sown in conditions of full-scale Russian invasion.
Ukraine will be able to sow approximately 14.2 million hectares in the course of spring field work this season. agricultural land, which is 80% of last year’s figure of 16.9 million hectares, the reduction in sown area is caused by the invasion of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation and the temporary occupation of part of the country’s territory.
The relevant data was announced by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmygal before a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday.
“As of April 18, the projected sown area of the main spring crops in the controlled area is 14.2 million hectares. This is 2.7 million hectares less than last year. That is, in fact, we will sow more than 80% this year last year’s areas with spring crops,” the Prime Minister stressed.
Previously, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food estimated the area under spring crops in 2022 at 13.44 million hectares, compared with 16.92 million hectares in 2021.
As reported, in mid-March, Deputy Head of the President’s Office Rostyslav Shurma said that Ukraine’s goal in 2022 is to harvest at least 70% of last year’s volumes.
Taras Vysotsky, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy, gave a similar assessment – he estimated the areas that Ukraine will be able to sow with spring crops in 2022 at a level of at least 70% of the 2021 figures. At the same time, about 10% of the sown areas may remain unused due to the risk of their being mined by Russian invaders or the resumption of hostilities nearby.
Ukraine as of May 7, had sown 4.37 million hectares with spring grain and leguminous crops, or about 58% of the area planned for spring sowing, of which 1.45 million hectares were sown over the past week, the Economy Ministry said on Friday.
According to its data, as of the indicated date, some 2.4 million hectares were sown with corn (46% of the forecast), barley were sown on 1.3 million hectares (95%), peas some 226,400 hectares (96%), oats some 185,400 hectares (96%), wheat some 172,200 hectares (98%).
In addition, 3.2 million hectares were sown with sunflower (50% of the forecast), sugar beet on 223,000 hectares (98%), soybeans on 254,800 hectares (18%), buckwheat on 19,000 hectares (24%).
According to the Economy Ministry, agricultural producers in 14 regions have completely finished sowing early spring grains and leguminous.
IMC agricultural holding has completed the spring sowing campaign on 104,100 ha compared with 105,200 ha in 2018.
According to a company press release, the sowing area under sunflower this year amounted to 22,800 hectares, under soybean – 10,800 hectares, under corn – 69,500 hectares. Also about 1,000 hectares were planted with fodder crops to meet the needs of the company’s dairy farming.
“In the current season, we managed to sow crops in almost optimal time period, despite the fact that sowing took place with certain pauses caused by weather conditions,” Chief Operating Officer of the IMC Oleksandr Verzhykhovskyi said.
IMC’s core business is cultivation of grains, oilseeds and milk production in Ukraine. The agricultural holding cultivates about 130,000 hectares of land in Poltava, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions. It owns storage facilities with a capacity of 554,000 tonnes of grains and oilseeds.
