KIEV: Ukraine is likely to increase its harvest of barley to 8.8 million tonnes next year from 8.2 million tonnes in 2015 thanks to a bigger harvested area, analyst UkrAgroConsult said on Tuesday.
The area sown to barley totalled 2.8 million hectares this year and could rise to 3.6 million hectares in 2016, the consultancy said. UkrAgroConsult forecast that the barley yield could fall to 2.59 tonne per hectare in 2016, from 2.96 tonne this year, because of unfavourable weather during autumn sowing.
“At the present time the condition of winter crops leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, if the weather is favourable, barley production may reach about 8.8 million tonnes in 2016,” it said.
UkrAgroConsult estimates that barley exports could rise to 4.5 million tonnes in the 2016/17 July-June season from 4 million tonnes forecasted for the current season. Ukraine is among the top global barley exporters and ships most of its grain to Saudi Arabia, China and Libya.