KYIV, August 21 – As Ukraine’s harvest campaign gets into full swing, government officials and independent analysts are offering conflicting forecasts for crops, with analysts saying bad weather and a lack of funds would cut production.
Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko told a news conference on Monday the government expected a grain crop of 24.7 million tons, slightly up from last year’s disastrous 24.4 million tons.
But analysts dismiss the official optimism, saying weather and the lack of inputs left too much to chance.
“Due to a general decline in the sector, grain output is now very sensitive to weather conditions as it was in the nineteenth century,” Serhiy Feofilov, head of Ukraine’s leading agricultural consultancy Ukragroconsult, said.
“Farmers sow and then they pray.”
He added that the total grain harvest would be worse this year.
“Only maize and sunflower may perform slightly better.”
Feofilov said Ukragroconsult would stick to its previous grain forecast of just 22.59 million tons for this year.
Official figures show farms had threshed a total of 18.214 million tons of grain by bunker weight by August 17, compared to 20.856 million tons on the same date last year.
Analysts point to the poor quality of grain and low yields due to insufficient use of fertilizers and inadequate supplies of fuel and machinery.
Grain yields have averaged 1.99 tons per hectare so far, down from 2.15 tons last year, the government says.
In contrast to grain, the harvest of sugar beet looks generally better than last year’s.
The government expects the beet harvest to rise by 1.5 million tons from last year’s 13.89 million tons, due to recent hot, sunny weather.
Heat waves that have swept Ukraine in the last few weeks are favorable for the sugar beet crop, analysts concur.
But they are not raising their forecasts as the sugar beet crop was damaged by adverse weather conditions in May.
Feofilov estimated the sugar beet crop at 13.5-14.0 million tons this year, below official expectations of over 15 million tons.
“The sugar beet (crop) is in a favorable condition right now and dry weather will help increase its sugar content, but we are not going to revise our forecast,” Feofilov said.
Yevhen Imas, president of Intertsukor sugar trading concern, said about 10-15 percent of the area sown to beet had been replanted after unseasonal frosts in May, and the total area under cultivation had slipped compared to the previous year.
The total area sown to sugar beets is 888,000 hectares this year, compared to 1.05 million last year.
There are other reasons for the expected poor crop.
“This year the number of pests is the highest in the last 40 years, while we imported only 15 percent of the required fertilizers,” Imas said.
