The Ukrainian agriculture ministry does not expect sowing delays caused by a late spring to affect the 2018 grains harvest, which it expects to match last year's 61 million tonnes, acting minister Maksym Martyniuk said. Ukraine's spring sowing campaign started with some delays due to unseasonably cold weather, but the ministry's harvest expectations are unchanged, he said.
"We don't see any grounds for lowering our forecasts," he said in a briefing. "We expect a harvest at last year's level." In 2017, Ukraine harvested 61.3 million tonnes of grain, including 26.1 million tonnes of wheat and 24.1 million tonnes of maize. Martyniuk also said there was no change to the ministry's expectation that Ukraine would export 41 million tonnes of grain in the 2017/2018 season, which runs from July to June.
Late frosts have pushed back sowing campaigns in parts of Ukraine by up to 2 weeks later than the recent annual average, said Tetyana Adamenko, a senior official at Ukraine's state weather forecaster, at the same briefing. But "weather forecasters see no more frosts this spring in Ukraine and forecast no loss from cold snaps," Tetyana Adamenko said.
She said all sowing will have started across Ukraine in the next three to five days and the current conditions would benefit crops already in the ground. "The current moisture reserves are uniquely favourable to winter grains and they practically guarantee our avoiding possible drought," she said.