Despite the difficulties faced by agriculture during russia's war against Ukraine, agrarians are making every effort to ensure the 2024 harvest and food security, the Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy informs.
Thus, according to preliminary estimates of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, in 2024, the gross production of grains and oilseeds will be about 74 million tonnes. Of these, about 52.4 million tonnes of grains and 21.7 million tonnes of oilseeds.
At the beginning of last year, the total gross harvest of grains and oilseeds in 2023 was also forecast to be almost 13% lower than in the previous period, at 63.5 million tonnes. However, weather conditions contributed to the increase in harvest. Therefore, in 2023, the gross production was about 82 million tonnes, including more than 60 million tonnes of grains and about 22 million tonnes of oilseeds.
Therefore, the forecasts for gross harvest figures are preliminary and will be adjusted throughout the year depending on circumstances, primarily weather conditions.
It is expected that this year farmers will be able to harvest the following volumes of grain:
wheat - 19.2 million tonnes (in 2023, 22.2 million tonnes were harvested)
barley - 4.9 mln tonnes (5.7 million tonnes);
corn - 26.7 million tonnes (30.5 million tonnes);
soybeans - 5.2 million tonnes (4.7 million tonnes);
sunflower - 12.4 million tonnes (12.9 million tonnes);
rapeseed - 4.1 million tonnes (4.7 million tonnes).
The planted areas of grains and pulses are forecast at 10.6 mln ha (-395 thou ha compared to 2023). Of these, winter wheat was planted on 4.3 mln ha (-0.3 mln ha), while spring wheat is expected to be planted on 0.2 mln ha (+0.2 thou ha).
Winter barley was sown on 0.47 million hectares (-0.15 million hectares), the area of spring barley is expected to be 0.94 million hectares (+0.06 million hectares), and corn - 3.9 million hectares (-62 thousand hectares).
Among oilseeds, the area under soybeans is increasing. It is forecasted that soybeans will be planted on the area of 2.2 mln ha. This is almost 400 thousand hectares more than last year. Sunflower will be planted on 5.3 million hectares, almost the same as last year. Rapeseed will be planted on 1.5 million hectares, which is 0.1 million hectares less than last year.