Despite War, Ukraine Sows 20% of Planned Acreage

Despite a俄罗斯invasiondisrupting the entirety of life in Ukraine, the country has managed to sow over20% of its planned area with agricultural crops, says the Ukrainian government.

During the sowing season-2022, Ukraine sowed 3.02 million hectares of land with the main agricultural crops, which is 20.1% of the 14.4 million hectares planned for the current season, the data on which were adjusted upward by 7.1% the day before (from 13.44 million hectares previously announced), theMinistry of Agrarian Policy and Foodsaid on Friday.

According to data published on itswebsite, over the past week from April 15 to April 21, the area under crops increased by 56%, from 1.94 million hectares to 3.02 million hectares.

It is clarified that by now the total area sown with spring barley is 802.2 thousand hectares (+59 thousand hectares per week), sunflower – 896 thousand hectares (+462.3 thousand hectares), spring wheat – 164.4 thousand hectares (+18 thousand hectares), peas – 107.2 thousand hectares (+6.7 thousand hectares), oats – 127 thousand hectares (+15.4 thousand hectares).

In addition, the sown area under potatoes is 366.2 thousand hectares (+236.9 thousand hectares), sugar beet – 155.6 thousand hectares (+45.3 thousand hectares), soybeans – 62 thousand hectares ( +41.1 thousand hectares), spring rapeseed – 16.4 thousand hectares (+4.8 thousand hectares), millet – 4.8 thousand hectares (+2 thousand hectares), buckwheat – 1 thousand hectares (+0.4 thousand ha).

According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, Vinnitsa, Volyn, Transcarpathian, Kirovograd, Odessa, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions have completely completed the sowing of spring crops of the early group: wheat, barley and oats. Almost 70% of the projected areas have already been sown with these crops.

Also in 2021, winter crops were sown for the 2022 harvest on a total area of 7.7 million hectares, including 6.5 million hectares of winter wheat, 1 million hectares of barley and 0.16 million hectares of rye.

At the moment, agricultural enterprises have completed the first feeding of winter crops with nitrogen mineral fertilizers.

As reported, due to the military aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine this season, a reduction in the acreage of high-margin crops (sunflower and corn) is expected while increasing the acreage of crops that are easier to produce, but important in terms of food security – peas, barley and oats.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said on April 20 that Ukraine will sow approximately 14.2 million hectares of agricultural land this season, which is 80% of last year’s figure of 16.9 million hectares.

Earlier, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy estimated the sown area under spring crops in 2022 at 13.44 million hectares compared to 16.92 million hectares in 2021.
Rostislav Shurma, Deputy Head of the President’s Office, called Ukraine’s goal in 2022 to harvest at least 70% of last year’s volumes.

—Lisa Cleaver