The coming four weeks will determine how much crop Ukrainian farmers can get planted out in 2022.
“The frost starts coming out of the soils around the middle of March,” confirmed former Agriland contributor Tom O’Callaghan, who has lived and worked in Ukraine for the past six years.
“After that farmers have around about a month to get on with spring planting.”
Tom, who spoke to Agriland earlier this week, managed to escape the country shortly after the war broke out and is now resident in a neighbouring country.
“Grain exports from Ukraine have been halted by a combination of decisions taken by the government in Kyiv and the fact that many of the Black Sea ports are now blockaded,” O’Callaghan explained.
On Ukrainian soil
There are three main soil types in Ukraine, O’Callaghan explained. In the north of the country, lighter soils predominate while the south of Ukraine is characterised by sandier soil types.
However, the middle band of the country features very large areas of the black, fertile soils for which Ukraine is famous.
“Crop output in the country has increased five-fold over the past two decades,” O Callaghan continued.
“Twenty years ago grain and oilseed production amounted to around 20 million tonnes annually. Today the equivalent figure is in the region of 104 million tonnes.
“Hand-in-hand with this growth has been a commitment to growing ever larger acreages of maize.
“Ukraine is now the world’s largest supplier of maize to China.”
According to O’Callaghan, there are 50 million tonnes of grain storage capacity in Ukraine.
“Recent years have seen a very significant investment in modern machinery on the part of Ukrainian farmers,” he further explained.
“It has been estimated that new farm machinery, valued at around US$1.0 billion, have been brought into the country on an annual basis over recent years.
O’Callaghan also confirmed the tremendous level of business investment and rationalisation that have taken place across all facets of Ukrainian agriculture over recent years.
He said:
“The top 25 businesses farm 4.8 million hectares of land while the top 5,500 farms manage 17 million hectares. The latter figure is equivalent to the entire farmed area of Germany.
O’Callaghan concluded:
“Land currently occupied by Russian troops may well not be planted at all in 2022.
“In parts of western Ukraine, it is still very much business as usual, where spring planting work is concerned.
“Obviously, everything depends on how the current conflict develops over the coming weeks.”