Unfavourable spring and summer weather has worsened the quality of Ukrainian wheat in the 2018 harvest and the share of milling wheat does not exceed 45 percent, traders said on Wednesday. An extremely dry spring and torrential rains during the threshing period have affected quality and the portion of feed wheat has jumped to more than 70 percent in northern Ukrainian regions.
"There is around 40 percent (of milling wheat) for sure. There is too much non-class wheat this year due to rains," one trader said. Another trader said: "The ratio is 55 percent of feed wheat and 45 percent of milling wheat. The quality is worse than a year ago."
Last year the share of milling wheat was 55 percent. Ukraine has already completed this year's wheat harvest, threshing 25 million tonnes in bunker weight. Last year the harvest totalled 26.1 million tonnes in clean weight and 26.6 million tonnes in bunker weight.
The agriculture ministry has said that at least 13 million tonnes of harvested wheat is milling quality.
The government and traders this month agreed that wheat exports should not exceed 16 million tonnes, including 8 million tonnes of milling wheat, in the 2018/19 July-June season.