KYIV, Sept 25 – Ukraine’s government has again revised the 2000 sunflower seed crop forecast to a record 3.2 million tons from the previous optimistic forecast of three million tons, Reuters reported.
“This year sunseed may yield an average 1.25 tons per hectare, or 0.25 tons more than in 1999. This allows…a crop of 3.2 million tons,” government spokeswoman Natalia Zarudna told reporters at the weekend, citing agriculture ministry data.
“This is enough to cover our domestic needs and also allows to export sunseed.”
But experts say the new government forecast is too optimistic and Ukraine is likely to harvest no more than some three million tons of sunseed.
Ukraine gathered 2.75 million tons of sunseed in 1999.
“We say – Ukraine is able to get up to three million tons in 2000, and the forecast of 3.2 million tons is unrealistic,” said Serhy Feofilov, director of the country’s leading UkrAgroConsult agricultural consultancy.
“Even three million tons could be difficult to achieve, because about 10 percent of the sunflower area has been hit by disease which may result in a significant fall in sunseed yields,” Feofilov said.
Agricultural officials said last week Ukrainian farms had harvested 478,900 hectares of sunflowers, threshing 610,000 tons of sunseed by September 18.
Sunseed yields rose to 1.27 tons per hectare from 1.04 tons in 1999.
The area sown to sunflower totals 2.888 million hectares this year, compared to 2.860 million hectares in 1999.
