Agrarians in all controlled regions of Ukraine have started sowing spring crops

Farmers in all regions controlled by Ukraine have started sowing spring crops. Currently, it is known that 500,000 hectares of grain and leguminous crops have been sown by all categories of farms. 

Farmers of Ternopil Region - 94.7 thousand hectares, Vinnytsia Region - 74.3 hectares, and Khmelnytskyi Region - 60.8 hectares planted the most grain and leguminous crops. A total of 207,000 hectares of grain and leguminous crops were sown last week, with 27,100 hectares being the leaders of the Ternopil Oblast agricultural producers. Farmers of Vinnytsia, Volyn, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy regions have started planting sugar beets. In the first place is Vinnytsia - 15.3 thousand hectares. And the agrarians of Odesa, Khmelnytskyi and Bukovyna started sowing sunflower seeds.

It should be noted that this year the preparation for the sowing campaign was complicated by the full-scale war. Ukrainian farmers had to face many new challenges. The most important of them is the reduction of the area suitable for sowing. A large part of the Ukrainian territories was and still is partially mined, and another part is temporarily occupied by Russia. To these problems were added complications of logistics, blocking of the grain corridor, rising prices of consumables, etc.

We will remind that in previous years, the largest volumes of grain in Ukraine were grown in the southern and eastern regions. For example, in 2021, the most wheat was harvested in Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions. And corn is grown more in the central part of the country and in the northeast. In 2021, these were Kyiv region, Chernihiv region, Cherkasy region, Poltava region and Vinnytsia region. For sunflower, more typical regions are also closer to the southeast: Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

However, during the war, farmers really had to change the geography of sowing and in certain areas grow more crops that are not typical for a particular region. For example, in the Kirovohrad region, due to economic and external factors, sowing of winter crops decreased, but sowing of corn and sunflower increased. In general, Kirovohrad Oblast specializes more in cereals, but this year the demand for vegetable seed material has increased. This was influenced by several factors, in particular, the temporary occupation of part of the territories of Kherson region and Mykolaiv region, where before the war mainly vegetable crops were grown.

Currently, the agricultural sector is the largest export industry of Ukraine, which in 2022 provided more than half of all exports, sending products worth more than $23 billion abroad. The currency that enters the country, in particular, supports the reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine and the stability of the hryvnia. In addition, as is known, this year the budget deficit will amount to 38 billion dollars, which will be covered by revenues from international partners. However, the country cannot direct these funds to defense, so the financing of the army consists exclusively of taxes paid by businesses and the population.