Corn being harvested in Ukraine significantly more slowly than in 2021 - GrainTrade

MOSCOW. Nov 8 (Interfax) - Crops in Ukraine are being harvested much more slowly this year compared to 2021 because of rainy weather, and this particularly concerns corn, which had been harvested only from 27% of the area under crops (1.14 million hectares) as of November 4, compared to 61% (3.3 million hectares) on the same date in 2021.

"Crops in Ukraine are being harvested more slowly than last year, and the average humidity indicators are very high because of the abundant precipitation in September and October. Farmers hope that cold weather would reduce the humidity of corn from 22%-28% to the acceptable 16%-20%, and therefore, they plan to shift the harvesting to winter or next spring," Ukrainian media reported with reference to the website of the GrainTrade electronic grain exchange on Monday.

In addition, the cost of grain drying this year has increased 100%-200% compared to 2021, from 60-100 hryvni/tonne-percent to 160-250 hryvni/tonne-percent, because of the growing prices for gas and diesel fuel.

As reported earlier, Ukrainian farmers harvested 53.11 million tonnes of key agricultural crops from 15.13 million hectares as of November 4, including 4.3 million tonnes from 2 million hectares from October 28 to November 4.

The final wheat harvest this year amounted to 19.2 million tonnes from 4.7 million hectares, barley 5.5 million tonnes from 1.6 million hectares, rapeseed 3.1 million tonnes from 1.96 million hectares, and peas 261,000 tonnes from 111,500 hectares.

Farmers also harvested 9 million tonnes of sunflower from 4.1 million hectares, 6.4 million tonnes of sugar beet from 105,000 hectares, 6.3 million tonnes of corn from 1.1 million hectares, 3.1 million tonnes of soybeans from 1.3 million hectares, 151,000 tonnes of buckwheat from 111,000 hectares, and 98,000 tonnes of millet from 42,600 hectares.

The average yield of all crops has been 4.07 tonnes per hectare, including 5.54 tonnes per hectare for corn, 4.12 tonnes per hectare for wheat, 3.51 tonnes per hectare for barley, 2.89 tonnes per hectare for rapeseed, 2.39 tonnes per hectare for soybeans, 2.34 tonnes per hectare for peas, 2.31 tonnes per hectare for millet, 2.20 tonnes per hectare for sunflower, 1.36 tonnes per hectare for buckwheat, and 48.8 tonnes per hectare for sugar beet.