UKRAINE (11 May)
Spring cereal planting, mainly wheat and barley, is almost complete with some delays following an unusually cold spring. Late frost in April has damaged more than 1 million hectares of winter cereals, while inadequate soil moisture during early spring in southern Ukraine may significantly impact yields. The government intends to match the significantly high areas planted with maize last summer. Aggregate cereal harvest this year is estimated at slightly over 33 million tonnes, which is more than 13.3 million tonnes up on last year’s poor harvest but about 5.3 million tonnes down on the record harvest of 2001/02 marketing year. This year’s tentative forecast, which is highly vulnerable to weather conditions, includes some 15.6 million tonnes of wheat, 8.4 million tonnes of barley and 6.2 million tonnes of maize.
During the 2003/04 marketing year the Ukraine, for the first time in the past decade, became net cereal importer with imports totalling some 3.7 million tonnes following crop failure last year. Aggregate cereal exports are tentatively forecast at about 7.5 million tonnes during the 2004/05 marketing year.