June 22, 2007

Ukraine suffers massive corn loss due to drought

A serious drought in Ukraine has resulted in 1.1 million hectares of crops, including corn being destroyed, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Slauta said Wednesday (June 20).

Slauta said about ten million hectares have been affected, 1.1 million have been destroyed and 100,000 hectares have been replanted.

He is most worried about the condition of corn crops as he earlier said the country could harvest 10 million tonnes of corn under favourable weather conditions.

Citing preliminary figures, a source in the Agriculture Policy Ministry said 463,000 hectares of winter crops and 600,000 hectares of spring crops have been devastated as a result of the drought.

Ukraine had planted spring crops on 16.8 million hectares as of June 1, down 6.9 percent from the same date of 2006. Winter crops for the 2007 harvest were planted on 6.9 million hectares.