Ukraine forecasts spring grain areas down, oilseeds up

Ukraine's expected spring grain areas in the 2024-25 marketing year may fall, while oilseed acreages may rise, according to preliminary forecasts from the country's agriculture ministry.

Grain

Ukraine spring grain and pulses acreages may fall to 5.6mn hectares (ha), down from 5.72mn ha in the previous year, according to the latest report of spring crop planting progress. This contains the ministry's first preliminary forecasts of spring crop acreages.

Ukraine's corn planting areas for the 2024-25 marketing year are now projected at 3.91mn ha, down from 4.04mn ha a year ago.

The spring barley acreage in Ukraine can also be cut to 818,000ha, lower than last year's level of 869,500ha.

Meanwhile, the ministry expects an increase in the spring wheat acreages to 246,000ha, up from 191,000ha in the previous year.

Oilseeds

In contrast, spring oilseed acreage is forecast to increase to 7.54mn ha, up from 7.1mn ha a year ago, as oilseeds remain more profitable crops than grains.

Sunflower seed planting areas is projected to rise to 5.29mn ha, compared with about 5.03mn ha in the 2023-24 marketing season.

Farmers also may increase soybean planting acreages to almost 2mn ha, up from 1.81mn ha a year ago.

Spring crop planting progress

Ukrainian farmers seeded about 214,500ha with early spring crops — wheat, barley and peas — as of 21 March, up from 128,100ha a week earlier, agricultural ministry data show.

Ukrainian farmers planted 47,700ha of spring barley in the week to 21 March, with the overall seeded area of the product reaching 117,300ha, about 14.3pc of the total national projected areas.

Ukraine's spring wheat planting advanced by 16,100ha in the week, to 29,000ha. This was about 11.8pc of the projected area for the 2024-25 marketing season.

By Alexey Yeromin