Almost 90% Of Plan Completed. Sowing Campaign In Ukraine Coming To End

Ukrainian farmers intend to complete the sowing campaign on June 5-10. Currently, the plan for 13 million hectares has been completed by almost 90%. This was announced by First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy Taras Vysotskyi on the telethon, Economic Pravda writes.

Thus, according to him, the plan for sowing, set at 13 million hectares, has already been fulfilled by 85%, even closer to 90%. It is expected that the sowing will be completely completed in the first half of June.

The Deputy Minister clarified that the sowing of early spring crops, such as spring wheat, barley, peas, oats, as well as the sowing of sugar beets in a larger volume than last year, has already been completed.

"More than enough sugar will be produced," said the First Deputy Head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy.

Sowing of late crops - sunflower, soybeans and also, partially, corn - is currently underway.

"This year, the share of oil crops, namely soybeans, sunflower, rapeseed, increased. This is primarily due to cost logistics, accordingly, the change of crop rotation to crops that have a higher price per ton, per unit of output," Vysotskyi said.

Vysotskyi also explained that sowing in some places lags behind the average statistical forecast by one and a half to two weeks, but so far this is not critical.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, as of May 26, agricultural enterprises sowed 5.278 million hectares of grain and leguminous crops for the 2023 harvest.

Ukraine expects to sow more than 13 million hectares of agricultural land this year.

The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food predicts a decrease in the harvest of grain and leguminous crops by 16.6% or 8.8 million tons to 44.3 million tons in 2023 compared to 2022.