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Ukraine, Russia Spring Grain Planting Picks Up, Boosting Outlook

27 мая 2011 года

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Spring grain plantings in Ukraine and Russia have accelerated after a late start to the season and are close to last year's levels, with both countries aiming to boost overall production from a year ago when they lost crops to one of the worst droughts in recent years.

Ukraine's spring grain planting, which is 94 percent complete, reached 7.1 million hectares (17.54 million acres) as of today, which is equal to the 2010 level, the Agriculture Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. The country boosted its spring grain planting forecast to 7.6 million hectares from 7.5 million hectares a month ago.

In Russia, where it's still early in the season, 11.1 million hectares of spring grain sowing was complete as of May 13, compared with 11.3 million hectares in the year-ago period, Interfax news agency reported today citing the Agriculture Ministry.

Both countries restricted grain exports last year following the drought and are expected to lift limits on June 30, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which said in a report last week that exports from the former Soviet Union are expected to double to 26.3 million metric tons in 2011-12 compared with the year earlier.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this month that the decision to lift the grain export ban will be made after the harvest. The Ukrainian parliament is expected to approve new taxes on grain exports from July.

Russian Planting

Russia, where about 37 percent of the planting is done, plans to increase spring grain sowing by 5 percent this year, said Oleg Sukhanov, grain analyst at the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, or Ikar, by phone today.

"Weather conditions have normalized now" for spring planting after delays in the sowing, Sukhanov said. Wheat planting reached 2.7 million hectares as of May 13, which makes up 19 percent of the planned sowing, he said.

Barley planting is 59 percent completed and covered 4.5 million hectares on May 13, according to Ikar. Corn was planted on 900,000 hectares, or 47 percent of the area forecast, Sukhanov said.

Ukraine will increase spring sowing of corn by 17 percent to 3.2 million hectares this year and seeded 3.1 million hectares with corn as of today, the country's Agriculture Ministry said.

Ukrainian grain exports will reach 13.5 million tons by June 30, the Agriculture Ministry said, adding the aim is to boost shipments to 20 million tons in the year starting July 1.

Ukraine plans to produce as much as 45 million tons of grains this year as favorable weather will help increase grain yields. Russia's wheat crop will be 53 million tons, up from 41.51 tons last year, said the USDA.

Source: Bloomberg  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 53

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