Ukrainian farms have sown 7.45 million hectares of winter grains for the 2012 harvest as of October 21, or 92 percent of an initial forecast of 8.15 million hectares, the ministry said on Friday. It said in a statement the sown area included 6.15 million hectares of winter wheat (94 percent of the forecast), 986,000 hectares of winter barley (80 percent of the forecast) and 322,000 hectares of winter rye (95 percent of the forecast).
Tetyana Adamenko, the head of the agricultural department of Ukraine's meteorological centre, told Reuters this week that farmers cut the area of winter grains sown for the 2012 harvest by 1.0 million hectares due to lack of significant rainfall in the main growing areas.
She also said that 1.5 million hectares already sown to winter grains were 'under risk' this winter because seeding had been into dry soil and plants had not developed enough to survive during the winter. Adamenko said farmers had almost completed the sowing.
The data provided by the Farm Ministry showed that farms had sown 331,000 hectares of winter grain during the last five days. Ukraine, which plans to harvest up to 53 million tonnes of grain in 2011, harvested 47.3 million tonnes bunker weight as of October 21. The ministry has said the volume included about 22 million tonnes of wheat in clean weight and more than 9 million of barley. It also said farms had harvested about 12 million tonnes of maize bunker weight from 58 percent of the sown area so far. Ukraine plans to harvest a record 19-20 million tonnes of maize in 2011.