KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian farms have started the 2022 corn harvest, threshing 92,200 tonnes of the commodity from 0.5% of the sown area, the agriculture ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said in a statement that the corn yield stood at 4.41 tonnes per hectare.
The ministry has said Ukraine could harvest 25 to 27 million tonnes of corn this year versus 42.1 million tonnes in 2021 and the Russian invasion was the main reason for the decrease in the harvest.
Ukraine is a major global grain producer and exporter but is likely to register a significant drop in output this year, falling to about 50 million tonnes from a record 86 million tonnes in 2021 because of the invasion.
The ministry said farmers had harvested a total of 26.1 million tonnes of grain from 61% of the sown area in 2022 as of Sept. 23. and the average grain yield stood at 3.84 tonnes per hectare.
It said the country had completed its 2022 wheat harvest with output at 19.2 million tonnes in bunker weight and the yield at 4.1 tones per hectare.
Farms also harvested 5.5 million tonnes of the barley from 100% of the area and 250,700 tonnes of peas from 98% of the sown area.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Gareth Jones)
