As of yesterday Ukraine's Ministry of
Agriculture reported that spring cereals and legumes plantings
stand at 6.6mha or 95%.
At the same point
last year farmers had planted a million hectares more which will start to put
pressure on the Minister of Agricultures assessment that 2015 will be another
bumper year now the planting season is coming to a close.
Also don’t forget
that inputs have been reduced so what is growing will in all reality likely yield
less than last year. Plus it won’t be
long before we start hearing the “D” word* as we move in to the drier summer
months.
Anyway for the
record the Ministry are reporting corn at 4.1mha or 93% (4.7mha in 2014); sunflowers
4.5mha or 98% (4.4mha in 2014); soya 1.9mha or 97% (1.6mha in 2014); millet
80kha or 82% (88kha in 2014); rice 11.2kha or 98% (10kha in 2014) and not
forgetting our ould friend, buckwheat 106kha or 83% (128kha in 2014).
To summarise some
key points, sunflowers plantings are about the same as last year, soya is up
16% while corn is down 15%.
If you look at corn
output over the last ten years it spikes noticeably during the Yanukovych years
as his government pushed corn production to generate cash dollars to spend on
old ladies pensions or possibly private zoo’s and gold loaves.
Perhaps we are just seeing
a realignment back to where Ukraine’s corn output should be.
*Hint, begins with d ends in rought