Photo from UNIAN
The harvest of wheat in Ukraine by the end of this year will be about 25 million tonnes, which is 4% down from 2016, according to forecasts by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as of March 20.
"According to FAO forecasts, wheat production in Ukraine in 2017 will be 25 million tonnes, which is 4% lower than in the previous year," the report said.
Excess precipitation in Ukraine in October-November last year led to a delay in the sowing of winter crops, it said. As of the middle of February, about 80% of the crops were in good condition. The area sown with winter grain crops is 6.1 million hectares, which is 1% smaller than in 2016.
Read alsoUkraine's agriculture ministry set to boost state support of agri-businessesAs UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine ranks sixth in the world in terms of wheat exports and the ninth in terms of this crop production, the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club Association said.
According to the Agrarian Policy Ministry, Ukrainian agrarians set a historic record in 2016, collecting 66 million tonnes of grain, which was 5.9 million tonnes up from 2015. In particular, they harvested 26 million tonnes of wheat. Last year, the yield of wheat increased by 9% compared to 2015, to 4.2 tonnes per hectare (ha), which was a record harvest in independent Ukraine's history.
In general, the average yield of grain crops last year amounted to 4.61 tonnes per ha, which was 0.5 tonnes per ha more than in 2015.
In the 2016-2017 marketing year (MY, July 2016 – June 2017), agrarians plan to set a new record for grain exports by supplying 41.6 million tonnes of grain on foreign markets.