Ukraine: As of June 1 Ukraine planted 3.91mln ha of spring barley. Forecasts and estimations

According to State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, as of June 1 Ukrainian agrarians have planted 3.91 million hectares for spring barley.

The decrease in the barley seeded area to 9.0-9.5 million ha against 10.0 million ha in 2004 will reduce the barley crop to 15.5-16.5 million metric tonnes (from 17.2 million metric tonnes in 2004), according to the estimations of SovEcon Center.

APK-Inform Information & Analytics Service announced on June 6 at the 4th International Conference “Ukrainian Grain Forum. Grain Industry-2005” that sown areas of winter barley to be harvested in 2005 made 478,000 hectares against 556,000 hectares last year. Harvest area, according to their forecast, will be at 10 % less than the sown one, which is in line with many-year average values (harvest area will drop 16 % from 2004). Yields will also drop, according to APK-Inform’s estimates, by 13 %, which will result in a winter barley crop being at 380,000 tonnes smaller than last year.

In spring barley APK-Inform suppose a slight increase of sown area - to 4,200 hectares. The increase might have been bigger, taking into account rather favourable market situation in this season, but late spring affected the size of area of early grain crops, causing their cuts from the initially planned size in favour of late-ripening crops. Nevertheless, the enquiry made among the farmers showed that this phenomenon had not been universal and practiced on a massive scale. On the contrary, in some cases the hypothesis about increase in sowings of spring barley from the last year’s size was proving true, Andriy Pankratov said at the 4th International Conference “Ukrainian Grain Forum. Grain Industry-2005”.

He added: “At the same time, we do expect a decrease in the spring barley yields from last year by approximately 6 % - to 2.27 tonnes per hectare. Besides, as far as many-year average loss rate is taken into account, the harvest area is estimated to be smaller than in 2004.

This will lead to the total collection of barley this year (combined winter and spring) at the level of 9.9 million tonnes (final weight) - down 11 percent from the crop of 2004, which was the largest in the last ten years. However, when compared with the average value of barley crops in the last five years, the crop is expected to be 9 percent higher (at 840,000 tonnes).”

Total supply of barley in the new season will be by 700,000 tonnes smaller than this year, which will account for drops in domestic use, export and final stocks.

Thus, APK-Inform is expecting a decrease in domestic use of barley by about 140,000 tonnes. Losses of barley in the course of the season will be smaller. At the same time, the usage will increase for production of malt, but relates only to malting varieties, which might be imported in case of shortages.

“Exportable surplus will be smaller than this year, but, again, we suppose the potential to be realised at 100 percent - the same way as this season. It is expected that EU will cut its production of barley by approximately 5 million tonnes. Despite the current forecasts of increase in crop, Russia will hardly be able to raise significantly its sales of this grain to the world markets. Alongside this, a drop in production of barley is expected in some countries of Middle East and North African region, which will boost their import needs. That is to say: external market situation promises to be quite profitable, and Ukraine has a good chance to retain its title of the world leader in exports of barley.”

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