Ukraine: Farmers harvested 39.6 mln tonnes of grain as of September 22

Ukrainian farmers harvested 39.6 million tonnes of grain from 10.7 million hectares up until Sept. 22, up 15 percent from the same time last year, the agriculture ministry said on September 22.

It said that farmers had harvested 72 percent of the sown area and that grain yield averaged 3.69 tonnes per hectare, around 14.6 percent higher than last year's level.

Farmers had harvested 34.5 million tonnes of grain by the same date in 2013, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said earlier this month that farms had completed the 2014 wheat and barley harvest, threshing 24.4 million tonnes of wheat and 9.3 million tonnes of barley.

It also said that the share of milling wheat in the 2014 harvest would be 13 percent below the previous year's level, and stood at 56 percent.

The ministry said farmers had so far harvested 3.4 million tonnes of maize from 794,000 hectares, or 17 percent of the area sown for the commodity.

The maize yield fell to 4.32 tonnes per hectare this year from 4.95 tonne in 2013, it said.

Ukraine plans to harvest no less than 63 million tonnes of grain in 2014, similar to last year's level.

24 September, 2014