OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2016. The spring sowing campaign in Ukraine is gaining momentum. Farmers have planted the first 320 thousand ha with early grain. “Given the favorable weather conditions of the current year, the sowing of early grain crops started in 19 regions and covered 320 thousand ha or 12% of the projected area, namely: barley was planted in the area of 252 thousand ha (13%), oats – 9 thousand ha (4%), wheat – 11 thousand ha (6%), pea - 49 thousand ha (27%)”, Oleksii Pavlenko, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, reported.

The successful sowing campaign is the foundation of food security of Ukraine and the precondition of forming the export potential of the country. “According to the preliminary data, the whole area projected for the sowing of all agricultural crops in all categories of farming entities in 2016 is expected to reach 26.7 million ha, the area which is similar to that of 2015. Out of the whole area, grain crops shall be planted in the area of 14.6 million ha or 55% of the total, and this satisfies the standards of the optimum ratio of cultures in crop rotations. The sowing of spring sown cereals is forecasted to be completed in the area of 7.5 million ha, including early spring grains – 2.6 million ha.  In this regard, the structure of grain area for 2016 harvest can be modified depending on the conditions of winter crops wintering through optimization of the areas under spring crops, in particular, through substitution of corn for grain and late cereal crops”, the Minister stressed.

The largest area has been planted in Odesa region – 66.6 thousand ha (40% of the forecast), Mykolaiv region – 66.0 thousand ha (40%), Kherson region – 63.0 thousand ha (36%) and Zaporizhzhya Region – 42.4 thousand ha (20%).

Oleksii Pavlenko stressed that, according to the data from the regions, as of the current date, the expected availability of spring crops seeds (without corn) of all categories of farming enterprises comprised 596.6 thousand tons accounting for 101% of the needs.

The holding of the spring sowing campaign is expected to involve the use of 945.5 thousand tons of fertilizers: nitrogen fertilizers – 676 thousand tons, phosphate fertilizers – 152 thousand tons, potassium fertilizers – 118 thousand tons.

The operational data from the regions, as of March 11th, 2016, agricultural enterprises have available, taking into account the carry-overs, 843 thousand tons of nutrients mineral fertilizers accounting for 89% of the requested amount (in 2015 this figure was 88%), including nitrogen fertilizers – 613 thousand tons or 91%, phosphate fertilizers – 133 thousand tons or 87%, potassium fertilizers – 97 thousand tons or 82%, generally, similar to the level of availability in the previous year.