KYIV: Ukraine’s 2022 grain harvest may fall sharply to 51 million tonnes from a record 86 million tonnes in 2021 because of Russia’s invasion, a senior Ukrainian agriculture official said on Wednesday.

Ihor Vishtak, director of the agriculture ministry’s department for agrarian development, told a news briefing that farmers had already harvested around 39 million tonnes of grain.

He also said that next year’s grain sowing structure would depend on the condition of winter wheat after the coming winter, but farmers could reduce the area sown to the next year’s corn harvest.