Ukraine: Ukraine to cut winter wheat, barley area this year

Ukraine, hit by the severe drought, plans to cut its area under winter wheat to 6.1 million hectares from around 6.7 million a year earlier, the economy ministry said on September 29.

The ministry's data showed farms had sown around 25% of the expected area as of Sept. 28 or 1.5 million hectares.

The ministry gave no comparison.

The ministry also said farms had sown 61,200 hectares of winter barley or 6% of the expected sowing area of 946,300 hectares.

Farms sowed 1.06 million hectares of winter barley for the 2020 harvest.

Weather forecasters this month called the weather conditions the worst in 10 years and said only 10% to 15% of Ukraine's arable land was suitable for sowing winter crops for the 2021 harvest due to a severe drought.

Ukraine traditionally begin winter grain sowing in early September, but this year farmers have started the sowing few weeks later.

Ukraine controls about 16% of global grain exports and sold 57.2 million tonnes of grain abroad in the 2019/20 season. The government has said exports could decline to 47.4 million tonnes in 2020/21.

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