Ukraine’s Winter-Wheat Harvest May Decline by 30%

Date:01-23-2012

Ukraine’s winter wheat harvest may decline by 30 percent this year compared with 2011 after drought weakened plants, agriculture researcher ProAgro said, citing Tetiana Adamenko, head of the national weather center’s agro- meteorology department.

Even under the best-case scenario, the harvest will be at least 20 percent to 30 percent lower, Kiev-based ProAgro said in a statement e-mailed yesterday, citing Adamenko.

Farmers will have to prepare significant areas for re- seeding, ProAgro cited her as saying.

Ukraine’s farmers may have to replant as many as 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of grain in the spring, Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk said last month, after a three-and- a-half month drought damaged plants.