Ukraine's harvest picks up pace with 1m mt of grain threshed

Ukraine has started a large-scale harvesting campaign through the first week of the 2022/23 marketing year, government data covering the new marketing year has shown Thursday - although the first grains were threshed nearly a month ago in the southern regions of the country.

As of July 7, harvesting was carried out on an area of 417,300 ha (3%) with an average yield of 2.6 t/ha, 1 million tons of grain of the new crop were threshed so far, agriculture ministry data released Thursday showed.

Wheat

The wheat harvest has been complete on 147,300 ha from a total planted are of 4.9 million ha of land (3%), with an average yield of 2.4 mt/ha, meaning 355,820 mt has now been brought in from the fields.

The EU monitoring service MARS predicts that wheat yields in Ukraine will fall to 4.11 t/ha amid poor weather conditions, compared to 4.53 t/ha in 2021 and slightly above the five-year average of 4.07 t/ha.

And the wheat harvest is expected to slip by 16% from 2021 to 26.9 million mt this year. 

While, according to the USDA's expectations, the wheat harvest will decrease by 35% to 21.5 million mt compared to the previous season to 33 million mt.

Barley

Barley harvesting campaign is now finished on 254,260 ha with yields of 2.8 mt/ha, leaving 717,760 mt now in the bin.

For barley, the EU’s MARS has also projected a decrease in yields, pegging them at 3.3 mt/ha, down from last year’s 3.8 mt/ha, and equal to the five-year average of 3.3 mt/ha.

The EU crop monitoring service expects the country to harvest 6.66 million mt of barley in 2022, down 29% from 9.44 million mt in 2021, and down by 20% from the five-year average of 8.32 million mt. 

The USDA expects that production will decrease by 42% to 5.70 million mt.

Rapeseed

The rapeseed harvest is complete on 43,500 ha (4%) with yields of 1.5 mt/ha, and 67,310 mt was threshed.

Rapeseed yields are EU’s MARS estimated to drop to 2.67 t/ha, down from 2021’s 2.94 mt/ha, but up from the five-year average of 2.63 mt/ha.

And production is projected to be up 28% year-on-year at 3.7 million mt this year, which would be up 37 percent from the five-year average.

The USDA expects that rapeseed production will inrease by 6% to 3.2 million mt.

Corn

According to the EU’s MARS estimates, corn yields are to drop to 7.27 mt/ha, down from 2021’s 7.68 mt/ha, but up from the five-year average of 6.77 mt/ha.

And total corn production is projected to be down 16% year-on-year at 35.3 million mt this year, which would be up 4.6 percent from the five-year average.

The USDA estimates that corn production will be at 25 million mt for 2022/23, which is 40.6% lower than last year.

Finally, this year Ukraine expects to harvest at least 50 million tons of grain, said First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Vysotsky on July 6 at the local media.

Given the circumstances and difficulties of the sowing and logistics base in wartime, it is expected that the harvest "will not be so bad - above the average for the last 5 years." 

"At least 50 tons of grain, and maybe more. It depends on the corn harvest, the results of which we will see in October," said Vysotsky.