Heavy rains delay spring sowing in Ukraine, may affect harvest

Torrential rains across almost all Ukrainian regions have delayed the 2024 spring sowing by around 20% compared with 2023 and could potentially affect the harvest, farm minister Mykola Solsky said on Tuesday.

“There is 20% delay compared to 2023. There should be corn sowing, but it’s not coming and that’s not good. Of course we will sow everything, but the question is in what timeframe,” Solsky told reporters.

He gave no exact figures, while his ministry said on Friday Ukrainian farmers had sown more than 2 million hectares of spring crops so far, including 748,700 hectares of corn.

The ministry did not provide data for year-on-year comparison.

The ministry said in March that the 2024 corn sowing area was likely to decrease by 4.5% to 3.863 million hectares from 4.043 million hectares in 2023.

It also said Ukraine’s grain harvest was likely to fall to about 52 million metric tons this year from 58 million tons in 2023, mostly due to an expected smaller sowing area.

The ministry’s crop forecast shows the country could harvest 27 million tons of corn, 19 million tons of wheat and 5 million tons of barley this year.

Ukraine’s 2023 grain crop totalled around 60 million metric tons, including 22.2 million tons of wheat and 30.5 million tons of corn and 5.7 million tons of barley.

Tags: Ukraine