December 11, 2007

Ukraine plants winter grains for '08 harvest on 7.7 million hectares

Ukraine planted winter grains for the 2008 harvest on 7.7 million hectares, compared with 6.95 million ha a year ago, the agriculture ministry announced on Monday (December 10, 2007).

The ministry said about 90 percent of the planted grains were in a good or satisfactory condition so that a good harvest could be expected next year, provided there were no adverse weather conditions.

Last year, Ukraine increased its winter grains planed area by 14 percent on the previous year, and total grain harvest this year was originally expected to increase to 38 million  tonnes from 34.258 million tonnes in 2006.

However, because of drought in the summer months Ukraine's grain harvest this year fell to just over 30 million tonnes.