Ukraine's wheat, barley harvest wraps up, misses USDA forecast

Ukraine’s 2020 harvests of wheat and barley will fall short of USDA estimates, data from the country’s agricultural ministry released Friday evening suggest.

The domestic wheat harvest has been completed on 6.3 million ha or 96% of the planted area, with 25.5 million mt gathered, the data shows.

This suggests the harvest will undershoot the USDA's latest forecast for 27.5 million since yields are unlikely to improve significantly from current levels in the final phases of the harvest.

The totals are also 10.5% lower than at the same stage of 2019 when 99% of fields were tilled and 28.2 million mt of wheat were harvested.

For barley, 99% of fields or 2.4 million ha have been harvested, with 8.6 million mt already in the bins.

This is down 4% on the same period in 2019 when 9.2 million mt were gathered from 2.59 million ha or 99% of the planted areas.

The USDA has forecasted Ukrainian barley output at 9.2 million mt for the 2020/21 marketing year.

In addition, harvest of the rapeseed crop has been completed on 1.07 million ha (96%), which equates to 2.5 million mt.

This is 19% lower than last year's figure for the same dates - at this stage in 2019, 1.25 million ha had been harvested (99%), with 3.1 million mt in the bins.