Top Black Sea grain market players Ukraine and Russia are likely to continue raising soyabean production which has already grown sharply in recent few years as global and domestic demand grows, analysts and agriculture officials said. Ukraine harvested 2.3 million tonnes of soyabean from 1.3 million hectares this year, Agriculture Ministry data showed, almost unchanged from 2.26 million tonnes in 2011 and up from 1.37 million tonnes in 2010.
The former Soviet republic harvested an average 460,000 tonnes of soyabean in 2002-2006. Russia, which uses almost all its soyabean crop for domestic processing, plans to increase soyabean production slightly to 1.8 million tonnes this year from 1.7 million in 2011. Analysts say that soya is an excellent precursor for corn and farmers are planting it in a bid to save on fertilisers. Ukraine's maize area jumped to a record 4.7 million hectares in 2012 from 1.5 million hectares in 2002.
"Ukraine will sow more and more soya. It allows (farmers) to save on fertiliser and brings good profit because foreign demand is so high," Volodymyr Lapa from consultancy UCAB said. He said the area under soya could reach 2.5-3.0 million hectares in the near future.
NET EXPORTER Ukraine processes less than half of its output and is becoming a net exporter of the commodity. Ukrainian farmers are likely to continue increasing the area sown for soya, Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk said. "We could add 20-25 percent next year and will increase the area in the future because everybody understands how important and profitable soya planting is," Prysyazhnyuk told Reuters this month.
The ministry said this month Ukraine planned to increase the harvest to 4.0 million tonnes in 2015 while the sowing area could rise to 2.0 million hectares. The ministry also said that Ukraine might export about 1.7 million tonnes of soyabeans this season, while analysts put the exports at about 1.4 million. Oil World estimates Ukraine's 2012/13 soyabean crop harvested in late 2012 at 2.4 million tonnes, up from 2.2 million in 2011/12 and only 813,000 in 2008/09. Ukraine had already exported 390,000 tonnes of soyabeans in September-November 2012, up from 250,000 in the same period a year ago, Oil World estimates.
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