OREANDA-NEWS. On September 15, 2008 Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Yuriy Melnyk has said he expects this year's harvest of grain crops to amount to 50 million tons and forecasts that around 20 million tons of grain will be exported.

"We predict 54.5 million tons of grain taking into account remaining grain reserves. We are planning to use around 6.6 million tons for food purposes and 14.7 million tons for cattle breeding. Around 20 million tons may be offered for export," he said.

Yuriy Melnyk also said that "we predict remaining grain reserves at the level of 5.5 million tons, or 20% of domestic consumption, that will fully satisfy the needs of the next marketing year."

He said on August 23 that Ukraine is planning to export around 22 million tons of grain this marketing year.

Yuriy Melnyk also said that Ukraine had exported 3.2 million tons of grain since the beginning of the current marketing year (from July 1, 2008), including 1.5 million tons in August.