Area under crops for 2017 harvest will remain at last year's level

The Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine forecasts the area under crops for the 2017 harvest will remain at 26.8 million hectares, which corresponds to last year's level.

According to a press release, the area under spring grains will be 7.2 million hectares, including 2.4 million hectares under early crops.

Grains will be sown on 14.4 million hectares (54% in the structure of areas).

According to preliminary data, the largest share of the predicted structure of the sown areas will be that of wheat (23.6%), sunflower (20%), corn (16.4%), barley (9.7%) and soybeans (7.2%).

According to the ministry, it is planned in the period of spring and summer field work in 2017 to use 958,000 tonnes of mineral fertilizers. Farmers have already bought 723,000 tonnes. The demand for plant protection agents in 2017 is about 28,600 tonnes, fuel 1.4 million tonnes of diesel fuel and 323,000 tonnes of petrol.

IC UAC according to Interfax-Ukraine.