September 5, 2011

Ukraine's milling wheat harvest share decreases

The share of milling wheat in Ukrainian wheat harvest is between 40% and 45% this year, decreasing from last year by about 10%, according to the analyst UkrAgroConsult.

Ukraine's Farm Ministry last month said the share of milling wheat had reached 70% as of August 18 compared to about 60% a month earlier. The ministry gave no explanation for the change in the grain quality.

But analysts, weather forecasters and traders have said the share of food wheat was much smaller as poor weather during the harvesting affected the quality.

The director of Ukrainian grain trader HlibInvestbud (HIB) told Reuters last month that feed wheat would make up 60-65% of the total wheat harvest in 2011 compared with 40-45% in 2010.

According to the data provided by Ukraine's Farm Ministry, farms had completed the 2011 wheat harvest, threshing a total of 23.2 million tonnes of wheat bunker weight. In 2010, Ukraine's wheat harvest totalled 16.8 million tonnes.

Ukraine consumes about 12 million tonnes of wheat per season.