Oleksiy Pavlenko: Agricultural producers fully provided with mineral fertilizers

In two months, the spring sowing campaign will begin. According to preliminary information, as regards the 2016 harvest, the whole cultivated area under agricultural crops by all categories of farms is expected to reach 26.7 million hectares or 100% of the area sown in 2015”, Oleksiy Pavlenko, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

“Cereal crops will be sown in the area of 14.6 million hectares or 55% of the total crop acreage, and this rate meets the standards of the optimal ratio of crop rotation. The sowing of spring sown cereals is expected to cover the area of 7.5 million hectares, including the sowing of early spring cereals in the area of 2.6 million hectares. I must admit that this is just a forecast. As regard the realities, the main issue of today is ensuring that agrarian producers are supplied with material and technical resources, in particular with mineral fertilizers,” the Minister noted.

According to the Minister, given the current financial capacity, the agrarian producers claimed and intended to use 946 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers in order to conduct the spring-summer sowing campaign: namely, 676 thousand tons of nitrogen fertilizers; 152 thousand tons of phosphate fertilizers; and 118 thousand tons of potassium fertilizers. Including the carry-overs, as of February 5th, 2016, agricultural enterprises keep available 439 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers (46% of the requested volume), including 314 thousand tons of nitrogen fertilizers, or 46% of the requested (in 2015 – 54%), 72 thousand tons of phosphate fertilizers, or 47% of the requested (in 2015 – 49%), 53 thousand tons of potassium fertilizers, or 45% of the requested (in 2015 – 50%). “As concerns the ways to ensure that agricultural producers are supplied with nitrogen fertilizer, I dare confidently say that the domestic chemical enterprises, under the condition of paced work, are able to fully meet the demand. The only exception is a number of types of nitrogen fertilizers.

However, their import can ensure that farmers face no shortage”, the Minister stressed. In particular, according to the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, for 11 months of 2015, Ukraine imported 224 thousand tons more nitrogen fertilizers than in 2014, which will be advantageous for the level of ensuring the needs of agricultural producers. The embargo on the imports to Ukraine of specific commodity groups will not affect nitrogen fertilizers, except for the previously imposed anti-dumping duties on ammonium nitrate. “As regards multiple-nutrient fertilizers, one should note that their deficit was primarily caused by insufficient production by the domestic chemical enterprises, thus, they can be fully supplied by the means of imports. Suffice to say that for the first 11 months of the previous year, Ukraine has imported 280 thousand tons more multiple-nutrient fertilizers than in 2014. For this reason, one should not be concerned about the supplies of this type of fertilizers to farms,” the Minister concluded.

UAC Information Center by information minagro