Ukraine's areas under corn down by 900,000 hectares in 2022 vs 2021 - Rada committee

MOSCOW. June 16 (Interfax) - Ukrainian agrarian workers have completed the 2022 sowing campaign on an area of about three-quarters of that sowed in 2021.

The sown areas under corn have decreased the most, to 4.6 million hectares from 5.5 million hectares in 2021, which was caused by complexities in logistics, Ukrainian media reported with reference to the website of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy on Thursday.

"This year has seen the restructuring of changes from the standpoint of priority of crops. This has been affected by several factors: the cost of spending per hectare, chances for its selling for domestic needs, and the ratio of agricultural yield per hectare of land and its cost per tonne. The most significant change in the structure of crops concerned wheat, corn, sunflower, and soybeans," the committee said.

The Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry said earlier it planned to sow 14.4 million hectares of land in 2022, which is about 85% of the area under crops in 2021 (16.9 million hectares).

The committee said the areas allotted for summer wheat in 2022 were 370% larger than in 2021 (nearly 200,000 hectares compared to 42,000 hectares), the reasons being the importance of wheat for food security and less agricultural work and material costs its cultivation requires.

The area under soybeans is roughly the same in 2022 (1.25 million hectares) as it was in 2021 (1.3 million hectares), while at the same time its share in the structure of crops sown has grown, as the areas under other crops have decreased in general. The committee rationalized this by the fact that soybeans are less dependent on mineral fertilizers.

The area under sunflower has decreased slightly compared to last year, still remaining at a high level of 4.7 million hectares.

As reported earlier, Ukraine sowed key agricultural crops on 13.4 million hectares of land by June 9 (including 0.22 million hectares over the June 3-9 week alone), which makes 93% of the 14.4 million hectares planned for being sown in 2022.

In particular, the area under sunflower amounted to 4.69 million hectares (95% of the 4.93 million hectares planned to be sown in 2022), corn 4.63 million hectares (95% of 4.85 hectares), summer barley 951,200 hectares (93% of 1.02 million hectares), summer wheat 191,100 hectares (sowing completed), oats 159,200 hectares (97% of 163,600 hectares), and peas 130,600 hectares (89% of 145,700 hectares).

The areas under potatoes amounted to 1.11 million hectares (93% of the planned 1.19 million hectares), soybean 1.21 million hectares (97% of 1.25 million hectares), sugar beet 182,100 hectares (88% of 206,900 hectares), summer rapeseed 33,400 hectares (sowing completed), panicum 48,500 hectares (78% of 62,300 hectares), and buckwheat 74,900 hectares (92% of 81,600 hectares).