Ukraine forecasts lower wheat, higher maize crop

Ukraines Agriculture Ministry forecast on Friday the 2009 wheat crop would fall to at least 20 million tonnes from 25.9 million last year, but said the maize crop would rise to 13-14 million tonnes from 11.4 million. "Of the 45 million tonnes (of grain) that we anticipate this year, wheat will account for a minimum of 20 million tonnes and maize 13-14 tonnes," First Deputy Agriculture Minister Yuri Luzan told Reuters.
"There will about 1 million tonnes of rye and quite a lot of barley," he said. Agriculture Minister Yuri Melnyk said this week farms planned to harvest at least 45 million tonnes of grain this year, down from a record 53.3 million tonnes in 2008. He said up to 94 percent of winter grain crops were in good or satisfactory condition.
Luzan said farms had also sown about 200,000 hectares to the 2009 spring grain crop, while the total sowing area could be about 8 million hectares, including 300,000 hectares of spring wheat, 3.7 million hectares of barley and 2.6 million of maize. Analysts, however, put the 2009 grain crop at 39.6 million tonnes, including 19.1 million tonnes of wheat, 10 million tonnes of barley and 7.6 million tonnes of maize. UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy, in its March report, said the area under wheat could fall to 6.6 million hectares in 2009 from 7.1 million hectares in 2008.
It said farms were likely to sow 4.6 million hectares to barley in 2009 compared with 4.2 million in 2008, while the area under maize could decrease to 2.3 million hectares from 2.5 million.
EXPORTS: Luzan said traders had exported 17 million tonnes of grain from the 2008 harvest so far this season (July 2008-June 2009), including nearly 600,000 tonnes in the first 12 days of March. He said the volume included 8.7 million tonnes of wheat, 5.4 million of barley and 2.8 million of maize. According to official forecasts, 2008/09 grain exports will jump to a record 25.0-25.5 million tonnes from about 4 million in 2007/08, when grain was subject to export restrictions. Analysts forecast exports at 20.8 million tonnes this season, including 9.8 million tonnes of wheat, 6.7 million tonnes of barley and 4 million tonnes of maize.