About 30 percent of sprouted Ukrainian winter grains were in poor state as of March 15, the Agriculture Ministry said on Monday. Record drought in July-November and severe frosts in January-February affected grain crops in Ukraine's eastern and southern regions, forcing farmers to reseed the damaged areas with spring grains.
The ministry said about 8 percent of the sown crops had already died. It said in a report that farms had sown 8.4 million hectares of winter grains for the 2012 harvest while 7.3 million hectares had sprouted so far.