KIEV (Reuters) — Ukraine’s grain harvest is likely to edge down to between 60 and 61.5 million tonnes this year compared with last year’s all-time-high output of 62.9 million tonnes, Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation lobby said on Wednesday.
The corn harvest is likely to decrease to 28.5 to 29 million tonnes this year from 30.9 million tonnes in 2013, while wheat output could remain at the last year’s level of around 22 to 22.5 million tonnes.
The government gave no crop forecast for this year.
Analysts have said they see the harvest at 55 to 58 million tonnes.
The agriculture ministry said this week that farms had sown 18.5 million acres of spring grain as of May 19, or 90 percent of the expected sowing area.
It said the already-sown area included 11.4 million acres of corn. Ukraine has said it plans to sow a total of 12.7 million acres of corn this year versus 12 million acres in 2013.
