KIEV (Reuters) — Ukraine will only lose up to 1.2 million acres of winter grain sowings for 2014, sharply down from its previous estimate of 3.7 million acres, Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk said on Thursday.
Prysyazhnyuk said earlier this month that the winter grain area sown for 2014 harvest could shrink by about 20 percent. He said winter wheat area could fall to 15.5 million acres against an initially anticipated 17 million.
“We had 10 days of dry weather and we had used them in full (for sowing). The losses of 400,000 to 500,000 (hectares) are not critical because next spring we will increase the area sown for spring grains,” he said.
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Prysyazhnyuk said the acreage of winter wheat was unlikely to fall significantly and the decrease in sowing area would be at the expense of a smaller area of winter barley.
Farmers had sown 15 million acres of winter grains, 73 percent of the forecast area by Oct. 14, ministry data showed.
The area included 12.6 million acres of winter wheat, or 76 percent of the initially expected sowing area.
Ukraine is a traditional grower of winter wheat, which accounts for more than 90 percent of its overall wheat output.
Prysyazhnyuk has said a possible fall in winter wheat area could cause a decrease in the 2014 wheat output by a third to 15 million tonnes from 22 million this year.
