Exclusive-Ukraine plans same 2024 sowing area as 2023, has concerns on wheat quality -minister

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By Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) — Ukraine expects its 2024 spring sowing area to be the same as last year, though it could see a slight decrease in the worst case scenario, Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky told Reuters on Friday.

Ukraine is a major global grain and oilseeds producer but its harvests have decreased since Russia invaded and occupied significant swathes of territory. The war, now in its 24th month and with no end in sight, has driven up global grain prices and disrupted supplies, especially to poorer countries.

«I don't expect any drastic changes in terms of sowing area. If the sowing area is smaller, it will be a very insignificant decrease,» Solsky said in an interview, providing the first official outlook for the 2024 sowing season.

Ukrainian farmers sowed a total of 12.75 million hectares of spring crops for the 2023 harvest, including 5.7 million hectares of various grains.

The acreage included 4 million hectares of corn, 5.3 million hectares of sunflower and 1.78 million hectares of soy beans.

Solsky said farmers had sown a smaller area of winter wheat last autumn due to poor weather and this could force them to increase the area sown to spring wheat. Ukraine sowed 280,000 hectares of spring wheat last year.

Ukraine sowed 4.2 million hectares of winter wheat for the 2024 harvest versus around 4.4 million hectares a year earlier.

«There will definitely be no increase in the overall sowing area. I admit its reduction, and the question immediately arises what to sow then? We have three options only — sunflower, soy and corn,» the minister said.

He said farmers would try to increase the area sown to soy, but a lack of high quality soy seeds could prove a serious obstacle. He also noted that