Page 66 - UKRRptSept19

grain harvest record, but how high this record would depend on corn harvest, which is still in the fields waiting to be harvested in autumn.
Farm production through July was up 12% y/y, reports the State Statistics Service. Driving the growth, crop farming was up 20.4%.
Farmers have almost completed the 2019 wheat harvest, threshing 26.6mn tons from 95% of the sown area, the agriculture ministry said yesterday. So far, Ukraine’s farmers have harvested 35.6mn tons of grain, half of the 70mn forecasts for 2019.
Grain exports are off to a strong start, with farmers exporting 5.6mn tons or 41% more than this time last year. The Agriculture Ministry figures are for the first six weeks of the marketing year, which started July 1. During the last marketing year, Ukraine exported a record 50mn tons of grain and flour.
Ukraine's winter crop harvest swelled 12.6% y/y to 38.3mmt as of August 14, the Agrarian Ministry reported the same day. The total wheat harvest (the key winter crop) rose 15.6% y/y to 28.1mmt with an average yield of 4.2 t/ha (10.0% higher y/y). Also, the rapeseed harvest surged 24.0% y/y to 3.1mmt with an average yield of 2.5 t/ha (a 5.7% decline y/y). The winter crop harvest improved y/y due to better weather conditions in first half of the year. This result will have a positive effect on Ukraine's economic growth and trade balance in 4Q19 and 1Q20. But winter crops aren`t the key indicator of what to expect this year as the main results of the Ukrainian harvesting campaign depend on spring crops.
Once a niche producer, Ukraine is now the world’s sixth largest producer of soybeans. After growing by 14.5% last year, Ukraine’s soy harvest is expected to hit a record 5 million tons, approaching Canada’s forecast 6.5 million tons. Exports of soybeans dropped by one quarter in last two years. But, due to a change in Ukraine’s VAT rules, exports exports of soybean oil and soybean meal doubled in the marketing year that ended in June. During the first half of this year, soybean processing volumes are up 1.5 times, compared to the first half of 2018, reports Leonid Tulush, of Institute of Agrarian Economics.
Modern large farms are the nation’s economic locomotive, expanding crop production by 31.5% through July. By contrast, family farm production was up 5.5% through July, compared to the first seven months of last year, reports the State Statistics Service. Last year saw a similar split: agro- businesses increased production by 12.1%, and households by 2.2%. Households may underreport production to minimize tax payments, a harder practice for big companies.
Farming was Ukraine’s most profitable sector last year, with 86% of farms reporting profits, according to Yuriy Lupenko, director of the National Institute of Agrarian Economics. By contrast, 74% of Ukrainian businesses reported profits. All 22 of Ukraine’s agro giants reported profits, accounting for 12% of the sector’s profits.
In Ukraine’s worst case of African swine fever, around 100,000 pigs are marked for slaughter after a fever outbreak was detected at Lviv region’s Halychyna Zahid, one of the nation’s biggest pig farms reports the Food Safety Service. Affecting 1.6% of Ukraine’s 6.4 million pigs, the case is Ukraine’s worst ever, reports Reuters. Since 2017, 351 cases have been detected in
66 UKRAINE Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com