Page 67 - UKRRptSept19

Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of 72,226 pigs.
Cows, pigs, and sheep continue to gradually decline across Ukraine.
Through August, cows are down 4.4% to 3.7mn – the same rate of decline registered in 2018, reports the State Statistics Service. Pigs are down 1.5%, to 6.4mn. Sheep and goats are down 3.2%, to 1.5mn. These rates of decline are close to last year’s. African swine fever has decimated pig populations, raising costs for commercial piggeries. For cows, the growth of commercial dairies has not compensated for the dwindling number of cows kept by households. In contrast, chickens largely raised in industrial farms increased by 2.9%, to 258mn.
Sugar production is forecast to fall by one-third y/y due to reduced plantings and erratic rains that may cut sugar content in sugar beets. Ukraine’s sugar production during the September 2019-August 2020 marketing year will fall to 1.1-1.2mn tons, predicts Ukrtsukor, the national association of sugar producers. World sugar prices have languished this year around 13 US cents a pound, half the recent peak of 23 cents, in October 2016. Astarta, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, estimates that Ukrainian farmers responded to low prices by cutting plantings this year by 28%, to 200,000 hectares
Ukraine’s corn crop will be another record – 36.5mn tons – forecasts the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA raised its forecast by 7% compared to the earlier estimate. With China stopping purchases of American corn, Ukraine is expected to export 30mn tons, the same amount as last year. The USDA reported in February that ‘sources’ told their office here that 5% of Ukraine’s corn was left to spoil in the fields last fall because there were not enough silos or grain hopper rail wagons. Undeterred, farmers expanded their corn plantings this year by 9%.
Ukraine loses a significant share of its harvest to poor logistics. Due to a lack of locomotives, “a significant part of the harvest will rot in the fields because it will not be delivered to elevators,” Leonid Kozachenko, president Ukraine’s Agrarian Confederation, writes in Apostrophe. “Losses of farmers can reach 5mn tons of grain and oilseeds. Wheat, barley, buckwheat, whose losses can be up to 1% per day, suffer because they simply cannot be transported” to elevators in time, he writes.
67 UKRAINE Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com