Ukrainian farmers had sown 3.2 million hectares of spring grain for 2015 harvest as of April 27, or 44 percent of the initial sowing area, the agriculture ministry said on Monday. The pace of this year's sowing is much lower than in 2014, when farmers had sowed 4.6 million hectares at a similar stage in the season, the ministry said in a statement. It gave no reasons for the disparity.
The acreage includes 1.6 million hectares of spring barley, 142,000 hectares of spring wheat, 208,000 hectares of oats, 169,000 hectares of peas and 1.07 million hectares of maize.
The ministry had previously said spring grains, mostly maize and barley, could cover 7.6 million hectares this year, almost the same as last year's area.
But it said last week that the area sown for maize was likely to shrink by about 8 percent this year to around 4.0 million hectares.
Ukraine harvested 28.5 million tonnes of maize from 4.36 million hectares in 2014.
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