September 6, 2023

 

Ukrainian farmers expected to maintain winter wheat sowing area for 2024 despite export crisis

 

Ukrainian farmers are anticipated to keep their winter wheat sowing area stable for the 2024 harvest, despite facing heightened logistics costs due to the ongoing wartime export crisis, said a senior farming official, Fox News reported.

 

Ukraine, renowned for its significant wheat production, encountered disruptions in the Black Sea corridor, a crucial route for grain exports during the war. This disruption raised concerns that farmers might reduce the cultivation of winter wheat due to declining profit margins attributed to the increased costs of alternative export routes.

 

The country's agriculture ministry cited survey data indicating that farmers might indeed reduce the area designated for winter wheat sowing while increasing the acreage allocated to winter rape for the 2024 season, potentially reaching record levels.

 

Taras Vysotskiy, Ukraine's First Deputy Agriculture Minister, downplayed the potential reduction in winter wheat sowing, suggesting it might amount to only 0.1%.

 

He said that any expected reduction in the overall winter grain sowing area would come at the expense of other grains, with barley sowing anticipated to decline by 5.4% for the upcoming winter.

 

For the 2023 harvest, Ukraine sowed approximately 4.1 million hectares of winter wheat, while the area allocated for winter barley amounted to around 615,000 hectares. Winter wheat dominates Ukraine's wheat output, accounting for at least 95% of the country's total production.

 

Farmers have already completed the 2023 wheat harvest, yielding 21.94 million metric tons, surpassing the 20.7 million tons harvested in 2022.

 

Ukraine's agriculture ministry has not yet provided a forecast for the total sowing area in 2024, but it mentioned the possibility of an 8% increase, equivalent to 0.5 million hectares, in the overall winter crop sowing area compared to the previous season.

 

Traders have speculated that an expansion in the sowing area of winter crops, particularly winter oilseeds, could lead to a reduction in the cultivation of spring grain crops, with corn and spring barley being the most likely to be affected.

 

Ukraine's current export options are limited to small river ports on the Danube and its western land border with the European Union. Consequently, local producers adjusted their sowing plans in 2023, shifting from grain crops to oilseeds, which, although more expensive to cultivate, yield lower volumes.

 

In 2023, Ukraine had already decreased its sowing area for corn in favour of sunflowers.

 

-      Fox News