Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Ukraine to start spring planting

Ukrainian farmers will start the 2017 spring grain sowing in a few days, expecting to sow a total of 7.2 million hectares of various spring grains, said the Agriculture Ministry on Monday. 

Last year Ukraine’s spring sowing campaign started on February 24.

I wouldn't read too much into a few impatient farmers getting planters out early and muddling in a bit of spring wheat, the real spring crop planting (corn, sunflower, soy) is sometime off yet.

Anyway, it's not planting date that matters, its the emergence date that counts.

Ukraine’s spring sowing campaign could rise to about 7.2 million hectares from 7.0 million hectares last year according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

They also said grain exports could reach 41mmt in the current 2016/17 season which runs from July to June having exported around 29mmt of grain so far.

Elsewhere the Ministry report sugar exports increased 33 times in the current marketing year - up to 344 thousand tons - compared to last year.

The Minister went on to say this result was achieved through systematic and coordinated work of all parts of the production (and rain, don’t forget the rain helped).