The area sown for maize in Ukraine is likely to shrink by about 8 percent this year to 4.0 million hectares, according to the data provided by the agriculture ministry on Monday. The ministry said in a statement the first 120,000 hectares of maize had already been sown as of April 17.
Ukraine harvested 28.5 million tonnes of maize from 4.36 million hectares in 2014. Analysts and traders have said a lack of funds is forcing farmers to switch to sowing cheap oilseeds from more expensive maize. The UkrAgroConsult consultancy said that farmers are likely to increase the area sown for oilseeds, a traditional commodity for Ukrainian producers in times of economic crisis, because they are cheap to produce.
The consultancy said the sunflower seed harvest is likely to climb to 10.7 million tonnes this year from 10.5 million tonnes in 2014 due to a larger sowing area. It said farmers could harvest 5.5 million hectares against 5.35 million last year.
Comments
Comments are closed.