June 26, 2012

Ukraine's 2012 grain harvest over 20% down on year

Due to adverse weather conditions, Ukraine is likely to harvest 43-44 million tonnes of grain this year, 20-30% less than last year, the Ukraine national weather centre said Monday (June 25).

The weather centre said the fall in harvest would be due to the drought that had been negatively affecting crops over the past few months. The weather centre said the current climatic conditions were good for corn, but the situation with corn could worsen if there were no rains in early July.

The agriculture ministry said June 13, Ukraine was likely to harvest this year 47.2 million tonnes of grain and export 27 million tonnes of grain in the 2012-13 marketing year.

The ministry said the expected increase in grain exports in 2012-13 would be due to high grain stocks left over from the current marketing year. The ministry expects grain stocks in Ukraine at the end of the current marketing year June 30 to total 12.6 million tonnes compared with 6.2 million tonnes on June 30 2011.

Total supply of grain in the Ukrainian domestic market in the 2012-13 marketing year is forecast at nearly 60 million tonnes, while Ukraine's own annual domestic grain requirement is 28 million tonnes.