Ukraine's 2022 corn harvest to be considerably worse than in 2021 - minister

MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax) - Last year's corn harvest has not been gathered from 15% of the area, and the quality of the crop is considerably worse than in 2021, which was more favorable, because some of the harvest was left in the fields for the winter, Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Nikolai Solsky said at a press briefing on Monday, according to Ukrainian media.

It will become possible to evaluate the final quality of the 2022 corn harvest in February, when farmers finish gathering it, Solsky said.

"The quality [of unharvested corn] is getting worse day by day. Of course, farmers, silo operators and traders know how to handle it and to even quality indicators. However, as compared to the successful previous year [2021], its quality will be considerably worse. It will be possible to say exactly how much worse in late February, because considerable amounts of corn are still in the fields," the minister said.

Corn had not been harvest from a third of the area by the beginning of winter last year, whereas today this amount is almost half that figure, but it is still quite large, he said.

"Our harvest this year is far worse, because for a number of reasons we had a protracted harvesting campaign, which itself is quite difficult: swings of air temperatures hamper farmers' work and harm the quality of grain. I think that, depending on the farmer, the percentage of losses may range from several percentage points to 15%. It depends on the sort of corn, the moisture level it had at the onset of the cold spell, the temperature swings now," he said.

The Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry said earlier that as of January 13, farmers harvested 23.5 million tonnes of corn from 3.6 million hectares, including 1.4 million tonnes from 200,000 hectares between January 6 and 13. Fifteen percent of the planned area remain unharvested.

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