Ukraine's Astarta finishes harvesting winter grains, grain legumes

MOSCOW. Aug 12 (Interfax) - Astarta Holding, Ukraine's largest sugar producer has completed harvesting winter grains and grain legumes.

The company harvested more than 302,000 tonnes gross from over 61,000 hectares, including 260,000 tonnes of winter wheat, 40,000 tonnes of rapeseed and 2,000 tonnes of peas, Ukrainian media reported the group's press service as saying on social media.

The average yield was 5.3 tonnes per hectare for wheat, 3.4 tonnes/ha for rapeseeds and 3.5 tonnes/ha for winter peas, a new crop for the company.

Unusually hot and dry weather "prompted us to harvest the crops quickly - this year's harvesting campaign lasted 14-17 days, compared to 24 days in the previous year," the head of crop production at Astarta-Kiev, Roman Pavlik said.

"Amid such unfavorable weather conditions, early varieties of winter rapeseeds and wheat demonstrated higher productivity, while late hybrids proved less resistant," Pavlik said, adding that winter peas "proved to be a good performer."

"This year, as in the previous year, we focused on optimising production costs, given the current soft commodity price environment. And we are succeeding in my view," he said.

The company said it is now preparing to start harvesting soybeans and sunflower seeds.

Astarta is a vertically integrated agribusiness group that includes sugar refineries, crop farms with 220,000 ha of land, dairy farms, an oil extraction plant, elevators and a biogas complex. The company's principal shareholders are the family of its founder and CEO Viktor Ivanchik with 40.68% and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd with 29.91%.