Ukraine raises grain crop forecast to 57 million tones

UkrAgroConsult raised its forecast for Ukraine's 2015 grain harvest to 57.0 million tonnes on Thursday from a previous estimate of 56.4 million tonnes, thanks to a higher than expected wheat harvest. The consultancy said Ukraine was likely to harvest 24.2 million tonnes of wheat in 2015, up from a previous forecast of 22.5 million tonnes. It also increased its forecast for barley to 7.9 million tonnes from 7.5 million.
"A higher than expected yield of wheat is the main reason for the higher forecast," UkrAgroConsult analyst Liza Malyshko told Reuters. UkrAgroConsult said, however, it had cut its maize crop forecast by about 4 percent to 23 million tonnes due to unfavourable weather this summer.
Ukraine's Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko said earlier this year that excessively hot weather and drought in central regions might reduce the Ukrainian maize harvest this year. The agriculture ministry has said Ukraine is likely to harvest 60 million tonnes of grain this year, including at least 24 million tonnes of wheat and 26 million of maize. It also said exports might reach a record 37 million tonnes this season.
Ukraine harvested a record 63.8 million tonnes of grain in 2014 and sold 34.85 million tonnes abroad in the 2014/15 season which runs from July to June. Leading Ukrainian grain traders' union UZA said on Thursday that exports might stay at about last season's level.
"We see (this year's) grain harvest at about 60 million tonnes but, despite a smaller output, exports could be around 35 million tonnes," UZA's chief Volodymyr Klymenko told Reuters. Klymenko said a record end stocks would help Kiev to maintain exports at a high level. According to agriculture ministry data, Ukraine had stocks of about 11.4 million tonnes of grain at the beginning of the current season, up from 8.3 million tonnes a season earlier.
Ukraine has already harvested 37.1 million tonnes of grain from 71 percent of the sowing and exported about 6 million tonnes in the first two months of this season. Klymenko said the pace of exports was 24 percent higher than in the same period a season earlier.