Page 51 - UKRRptOct18

Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has greenlighted in the second reading a bill aimed at deregulating the lucrative sugar industry. The document abolishes the regulations on the control of production and sale of sugar, which resulted in restrictions in the supply of sugar to the domestic market (quota A) and set a minimum price for sugar and sugar beets, according to Interfax news agency. In the 2017-2018 marketing year, sugar production increased by 6.5% y/y to 2.14mn tonnes. Some 46 sugar refineries were in operation during that season.
Ukrainian farmers expect a bumper corn crop – 30mn tons, a 20% jump from last year , the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club reports. Corn, Ukraine’s biggest grain, will compensate for a weak wheat harvest, pulling total grain production up by 4%, for a total harvest of 64mn tons. Petra Lakhaya, market analyst for the Club writes: “Given the high prices in the world market, [this] may allow Ukrainian farmers to achieve high financial returns.”
The national cattle herd shrank by 4% over the last year, a net loss of 176,000 cows, the State Statistics Service reports. For the year over year figures through Sept. 1, the biggest loss was in Mykolaiv region, where the cow herd dropped by 22%.The number of cows is 2.027mn animals.
The number of pigs decreased by 4.5% compared to the same date last year, to 6.477 million animals, sheep and goats by 3.6%, to 1.567 million as of September 1.
The number of poultry in the country increased by 2.8% compared with September 1, 2017, amounting to 245.451 million birds.
Ukraine's Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry predicts that corn harvest in Ukraine would increase by 19.4% in 2018 compared with 2017, to 29.5mn tonnes.
The ministry estimates that the wheat harvest in 2018 may decrease by 7.6%, to 24.2mn tonnes, barley by 13%, to 7.2mn tonnes, rye - by 15%, to 0.38mn tonnes, buckwheat - by 25%, to 0.14mn tonnes, soybean - by 2.6%, to 3.8mn tonnes, and sugar beet - by 10.7%, to 13.3mn tonnes.
The harvest of sunflower can grow by 9.8%, to 13.4mn tonnes, and rapeseed - by 18.2%, to 2.6mn tonnes.
The areas planted with crops for the 2019 harvest will be 8.09mn hectares, in particular 6.2mn hectares with winter wheat, 0.89mn hectares with winter rape, and 0.87mn with winter barley.
Analyst sees larger 2019 barley, wheat sowing area in Ukraine. Barley export prices are now the highest over the past four and a half years. Ukrainian farmers are likely to expand the 2019 sowing area under barley and wheat taking advantage of favourable prices, but reduce the maize sowing area, analyst UkrAgroConsult said on September 18. Farmers plan to reduce areas under winter grain crops this year by 32,900 hectares compared to the previous year. At the same time, areas under winter wheat will be expanded by 32,800 hectares in comparison with the previous year. Areas under winter barley and rye this year will shrink by 54,000 hectares and 13,600 hectares,
51 UKRAINE Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com