22 Jul 2024 10:39

Ukrainian farmers harvest over 15 mln tonnes of early grains, grain legumes so far

MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax) - Farmers in all regions of Ukraine have threshed 15.7 million tonnes of early grains and grain legumes from 4.403 million hectares, Ukrainian media reported on Friday, citing the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry.

This included 10.3 million tonnes of wheat harvested from 2.626 million ha at a yield of 3.94 t/ha; 3.1 million tonnes of barley from 824,200 ha at a yield of 3.74 t/ha; and 319,000 tonnes of peas from 154,700 ha at a yield of 2.06 t/ha.

Farmers are also harvesting oil crops and have so far threshed 1.8 million tonnes of rapeseed from 779,100 ha at a yield of 2.35 t/ha, and about 300 tonnes of soybean from about 200 ha at a yield of 1.93 t/ha.

Farmers in Kherson region have begun harvesting millet, threshing 80 tonnes from 50 ha so far.

The top three regions in terms of bringing in the grain harvest are Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk and Nikolayev, which cleared 629,400 ha, 544,200 ha and 527,500 ha, respectively. The Ivano-Frankovsk region leads by yield with 6.51 t/ha.

The ministry forecast in April that gross grain and oil crop production in Ukraine will total 74 million tonnes in 2024, including about 52.4 million tonnes of grains and 21.7 million tonnes of oil crops. "The forecasts are of a preliminary nature and will be revised in the course of the year depending on circumstances, foremost weather conditions," the ministry said at the time.

The forecast projects that farmers will harvest 19.2 million tonnes of wheat, 4.9 million tonnes of barley and 26.7 million tonnes of corn in 2024, compared to respectively 22.2 million tonnes, 5.7 million tonnes and 30.5 million tonnes last year. Soybean production is expected to increase to 5.2 million tonnes this year from 4.7 million tonnes in 2023, while the sunflower and rapeseed harvests are expected to drop to 12.4 million tonnes from 12.9 million tonnes and to 4.1 million tonnes from 4.7 million tonnes, respectively.

The gross harvest totalled about 82 million tonnes in 2023, including over 60 million tonnes of grains and about 22 million tonnes of oil crops.