Tuesday 21 March 2017

Black Sea agribusiness news update in brief

In January 2017 Ukraine’s exports of agricultural products amounted to $1.36 billion, the highest for the last four years.

Ukraine’s State Forestry Agency and the Forestry Commission Scotland will join forces to conduct joint research on improving the viability of Ukraine’s forest ecosystems.

So far this spring season Ukraine has planted 359,000 hectares of spring cereals and peas which represent about 15% of the total forecast area of 2.40mha.

Ukraine is also reporting 5.7 million hectares or 81% of winter crops has received spring fertiliser which a) doesn’t concur with what we saw last week and b) if it is then it’s too early based on the growth stage of wheat.

Russia has planted 596,100 hectares or 1.1% of the total forecast spring sowing area and also applied spring fertiliser to 5.7 million hectares or 32.8% of the total planted area which is starting to make this whole Black Sea crop reporting thing appear more like an inter-country competition.

Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture reports current fertiliser stocks are up 7% on last year, up 1% on the last report at the beginning of March.

Russian January and February milk production increased by 2.7% compared to the same period last year and amounted to 2.39mmt.

The Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Breeding noted the increase in production highlighted the underlining priority in developing the milk sector (that or more cows calved).