Page 56 - UKRRptAug19

meters; and Kinescope, on UPA Heroes Street, with a leasable area of 8,600 square meters.
9.1.6 Agriculture sector news
Ukraine, which expects its 2019 grain crop to be in line with last year's level of around 70mn tonnes, had harvested 32.9mn tonnes of early grains by August 1, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday. Farmers have threshed 8.7mn hectares of grains or 86% of the early grains sown area, the ministry said in a statement. The harvested volume includes 24.1mn tonnes of wheat and around 7.8mn tonnes of barley. Ukraine plans to thresh 9.76mn hectares of early grains this year, including 6.6mn hectares of wheat and 2.5mn of barley.
Ukraine has risen to become the third largest supplier of food to the EU, after the US and Brazil, the European Commission reports. In the year, ending in April, Ukraine’s food exports to the EU rose 14%, an €800mn increase. For the period, the top four suppliers of food to the EU were billions of euros: US -- €12.9bn; Brazil -- €11.7bn; Ukraine -- €6.3bn; and China -- €5.9bn.
Ukrainian farmers increased their area planted in corn by 9% after Ukraine’s corn exports to the EU doubled during the last marketing year, Pro-Consulting reports. In addition to Europe, China may also improve as a market due to the trade war with the US. Last year, corn accounted for half of Ukraine’s record 70mn grain harvest and 60% of its grain exports.
Ukraine’s wheat harvest is to rise by 13% this year, to 28.2mn tons,
according to a Reuters poll. Exports should rise by 18%, to 19.1mn tons. Russia’s wheat harvest should increase by 9% to 78.5mn tons. Russia’s exports should rise by 2%, to 36.6mn tons. In Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest grain producer, the wheat harvest is expected to drop by 2%, 13.7mn tons. Exports should drop by 12%, to 7.5mn tons. As of Monday, Ukrainian farmers threshed 7.3mn tons of winter wheat, one third of the forecast.
Farmers have threshed 30mn tons of early grain , largely winter wheat reports the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry as of the end of July. The Ministry predicts the nation will match last year’s bumper harvest of 70mn tons.
With agronomists forecasting annual grain crops of 100mn tons in the mid-2020s, Evrovneshtorg is increasing its Mykolais terminal to handle 4mn tons. “Evroneshtorg will take a leading position, not only in Mykolaiv region but also in the Black Sea-Azov basin,’ Sergei Gunko, company head and director of EVT Grain, said last week at a ceremony marking EVT’s 20th anniversary. Translated as Europe Foreign Trade, EVT ships grain for Louis Dreyfus, Soufflet Négoce, Cargill, Glencore, and Austria’s VA Intertrading.
The number of pigs in Ukraine may plummet to 1.7mn by 2025 , less than one-third of the 5.9mn counted last year by the State Statistics Service. From 200 to 500 farms annually phase-out pigs, largely because the farms are inefficient and cannot afford sanitary controls needed to fight African Swine Flu, reports the National Association of Pig Breeders. The future belongs to large industrial farms with more than 5,000 pigs, predicts the Association.
56 UKRAINE Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com