Ukraine harvests 66 mln tonnes of key crops from 85% of projected area

MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Ukrainian farmers have harvested 66.32 million tonnes of main agricultural crops from an aggregate area of 16.3 million hectares as of December 2.

Ukrainian media reported citing the country's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food that the proportion of harvested crop area has increased by 3 percentage points to 85% of the target over the past week. Some 2.5 million tonnes were harvested from November 25 to December 2 from an area of 0.4 million hectares, according to the data.

The harvesting of wheat, barley, peas and rapeseed has been completed. Millet has now been harvested from 96% of the projected area (a growth by 1 pp in the week), buckwheat from 98% (no change), sunflower from 97% (+1 pp), soybeans from 98% (+1 pp), sugar beet from 97% (+4 pp), and corn from 60% of the target crop area (+7 pp).

Data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food suggest that the final figures for wheat crop this season are 19.4 million tonnes harvested from an area of 4.7 million hectares, as 5.6 million tonnes of barley have been harvested from 1.6 million hectares, 3.2 million tonnes of rapeseed from 1.1 million hectares, and 261,000 tonnes of peas from 111,000 hectares.

As of December 2, Ukrainian farmers harvested 15.5 million tonnes of corn from 2.5 million hectares, 9.9 million tonnes of sunflower from 4.6 million hectares, 8.6 million tonnes of sugar beet from 174,000 hectares, 3.6 million tonnes of soybeans from 1.5 million hectares, 157,000 tonnes of buckwheat from 115,000 hectares, and 100,000 tonnes of millet from 42.9 thousand hectares.

The average yield for all crops this agricultural year was 4.4 tonnes per hectare, including 6.13 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, 2.42 tonnes per hectare for soybeans, 2.34 tonnes per hectare for peas, 2.32 tonnes per hectare for millet, 2.17 tonnes per hectare for sunflower, 1.36 tonnes per hectare for buckwheat, and 49.8 tonnes per hectare for sugar beet, according to the ministry.

Agrarians of the Nikolayev and Odessa regions have finished harvesting all crops. The Vinnitsa region has posted the biggest harvest for cereals and leguminous crops, totally 3.7 million tonnes, followed by the Kirovograd (3.4 million tonnes) and the Dnepropetrovsk (3 million tonnes) regions.

As reported earlier, Ukraine collected in 2021 a record harvest of grain, leguminous crops and oilseeds totaling 106 million tonnes, including 84 million tonnes of grain and legumes and 22.6 million tonnes of oilseeds.

In particular, Ukraine last year harvested 32.4 million tonnes of wheat, 40 million tonnes of corn, 10 million tonnes of barley, 581,500 tonnes of peas, 191,000 tonnes of millet, 110,000 tonnes of buckwheat, 16.3 million tonnes of sunflower, 3.4 million tonnes of soybeans, and 2.9 million tonnes of rapeseed.