July 29, 2011

 

Ukraine hikes 2011 grain harvest estimate again

 

 

Ukraine has revised its 2011 grain harvest estimate yet again to 51 million tonnes, signalling a 30% jump in production this year, lifted by a record corn harvest.

 

Ukraine's first deputy farm minister, Mykola Bezugly, said the agriculture ministry's official estimate of 46.1 million tonnes was "a mistake".

 

Bezugly's forecast compares with a recent estimate from Mykola Prysyazhnyuk, Ukraine's farm minister that the country was on for a harvest of "no less than" 47 million tonnes.

 

It is also a vast improvement on the 39.2 million tonnes produced in 2010, when Ukraine's crops were set back by the heatwave which, in Russia, caused the worst drought on record.

 

The harvest of early grains such as barley and wheat alone could reach 33.6 million tonnes, while the corn crop "could be about 18 million tonnes", assuming an average yield of five tonnes per hectare over the 3.6 million hectares harvested.

 

Ukraine's current corn record is 11.9 million tonnes, set last year, according to USDA data.

 

Ukrainian agricultural commodity producer Landkom International further eased concerns that summer rains had damaged crops, when some farms received six inches of rain in four days, provoking concerns of crop losses of 10-30% on affected areas.

 

Landkom International noted Thursday (Jul 28) that the "poor weather" had only caused a "limited amount of damage" to about 7% of its rapeseed crop in western Ukraine.

 

The harvest of autumn-sown crops at the group's southern farms, had revealed "dramatically improved" yields, with the wheat yield rising 50% to 3.23 tonnes per hectare, and the result from barley more than doubling, to 4.03 tonnes per hectare, although the improvement was attributed to harvest practice.

 

"The substantially improved yields were obtained due to more efficient harvesting equipment completing the harvest within the optimum time period," said the London-listed group, which two weeks ago revealed that it had broken into profit.

 

On its western farms, the winter barley yield had come in at 3.93 tonnes per hectare.

 

"We are on schedule and pleased with the progress so far in our west and central operations," Vitaliy Skotsyk, the Landkom chief executive, said.