Lack of moisture to hit Ukraine crop

Lack of moisture in soil across Ukraine could affect the yield of the next year's winter grain crops and reduce the harvest, a senior weather forecaster said on Wednesday as farms started the 2012 winter grain sowing. "The situation is not critical but we have enough ground for concerns," Tetyana Adamenko, the head of the agricultural department of Ukraine's meteorological centre, told Reuters in an interview.
Ukraine plans to sow 8.3 million hectares for the 2012 winter grain harvest compared with 8.1 million a year earlier. Ukraine sowed 6.6 million hectares for winter wheat and 1.26 million for winter barley for the 2011 harvest.