According to the official, the most affected region in terms of areas is the southwestern part of Dnipropetrovsk Region, with significant areas in Mykolaiv and Odessa regions and Kherson Region. There are also areas in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions affected by the drought.
“Unfortunately, primarily in the southern and southeastern regions, we saw atypical drought this year, which led to a reduction or loss of crops. Obviously, if there had been irrigation in these regions, these losses could have been avoided,” the deputy minister said.
He also specified that due to the weather factor in Ukraine lost crops on the area of about 386 thousand hectares. On another 1.2 million hectares of crops, yields decreased by 30-50%.
Vysotskyy reminded that according to the latest forecasts, this year’s harvest of grain and oilseed crops in Ukraine will amount to 76 million tons, which is 1.5 million tons less than in 2024 (77.53 million tons).
“We tentatively expect to harvest at the level of 56 million tons of cereals. Of these, 21.5 million tons of wheat, 5 million tons of barley, 28.5 million tons of corn. For oilseeds we expect the following harvests: 3 million tons of rapeseed, about 5 million tons of soybeans, about 12 million tons of sunflower. In total – 76 million tons of grain and oilseeds,” the official said.
He added that the decrease in the harvest will also affect grain exports.
“Currently, exports are formed at the level of 40 million tons of grain. If not for the drought, it would be 43 million tons,” the deputy minister noted.
