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IKAR in Mass Media

Black Sea faces good weather for 2013 grain sowing

30 августа 2012 года

KIEV, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Leading Black Sea grain producers Russia and Ukraine, hit by a record drought during last autumn's sowing campaign, are facing much better weather conditions for planting winter grain this year, analysts and weather forecasters said.

Ukraine, a traditional producer of winter wheat, plans to sow 8.2 million hectares for 2013 winter grains, wheat and barley, which is 2.4 percent less than in 2012, according to Farm Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk.

Significant rain fell on Aug.11-20 in western and northern regions and parts of the drought-stressed eastern and central regions, while torrential rains covered almost all Ukrainian eastern and southern regions earlier this week, the state weather forecasting centre said.

"Sowing conditions are much better this year," said Anatoly Prokopenko, the centre's deputy head.

Russia plans to sow 16.8 million hectares with winter grains for its 2013 crop, up from last year's 16.1 million hectares. Winter wheat accounts for about 45 percent of the total wheat planting area.

Sowing in Russia, one of the world's top wheat exporters was 7 percent complete, Agriculture ministry data showed on Wednesday. Russian sowing usually takes more than a month to complete.

"Common weather for sowing is favourable, but there are dry regions, for example, Rostov region," Dmitry Rylko, head of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), told Reuters.

Parts of Russia's South, including Rostov and Krasnodar regions, are expected to see heavy rains over the next few days, the Federal Hydrometeorological Centre said on its website in a weather forecast for Aug. 30- Sept 1.

"There has been a general increase in rains across Ukraine and north central Russia in recent weeks, which will be good for the upcoming winter sowings," Don Keeney, a senior agriculture meteorologist with Cropcast weather, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"However, we are still concerned about some lingering dryness in south central Ukraine as well as in southern Russia-specifically western and northern North Caucasus," he added.

HARVEST

Drought has already cut the wheat harvest in Ukraine by 27 percent to 16.3 million tonnes this year. The Russian government sees the grain harvest falling by 20 percent to 75 million tonnes, while Kazakhstan, another top grain exporter, says its harvest could halve to 13 million tonnes this year.

Russia's total grain supply this year - including grain harvest, carryover stocks and imports - will be significantly lower than in the 2011/12 season and also 4.3 million tonnes lower than in 2010/11, when the country banned exports, SovEcon agriculture analysts have said.

The supply decrease will be caused mainly by lower wheat supply, which is expected to fall below the 41.5 million tonne level of drought stricken 2010/11, according to SovEcon.

IKAR has cut its 2012 grain crop forecast to 70-71 million tonnes from the previously expected 73 million tonnes, its head Rylko said on Thursday. His 2012 wheat harvest forecast now stands at around 40 million tonnes, he added.

Russia had completed 62 percent of the harvest by August 28, reaping 53.4 million tonnes of grains, down from 60.3 million tonnes by the same date in 2011, data published on the ministry's website www.mcx.ru showed. By August 26, 2010, Russia had harvested some 42 million tonnes of grains.

Kazakhstan began its harvest campaign earlier than usual this year. As of Aug. 29, it had harvested 6.42 million hectares, or 41.5 percent of the sown area, and threshed 4.73 million tonnes of grain. The average yield was 0.74 tonnes per hectare.

After the early summer drought, a recent change in the weather was slowing the campaign in the northern grain belt, particularly in Kostanai region, where rainfall in the last month has been double the seasonal average.

"If we're not cursing the drought, then we're cursing the excess moisture," said Yevgeny Aman, executive secretary at the Kazakh Agriculture Ministry.

"Forecasters have promised a dry September, but detailed forecasts show the weather will not be good for the harvest until September 6," said Aman. "Current weather conditions won't allow for completion of the harvest by mid-September."

Aman said the fields were "sparse and stunted", while persistent high temperatures had encouraged the growth of weeds. Crops had been written off on more than 600,000 hectares, or nearly 4 percent of the sown area, he said.

Source: Reuters  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 56

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