Ukraine does not realize 50% of barley production potential

Photo by: Latifundist.com

The average yield of barley in Ukraine amounts to 3.13 t/ha, which is 2.2 times less compared to 7 t/ha in the EU. This was stated by the Director of the V.Y.Yuriev Crop Science Institute of NAAS Viktor Kirichenko at the general meeting of NAAS.

The expert informed that barley occupies 12% of the total cultivated area in Ukraine.

"In recent years, the area under barley was significantly reduced from 5.8 million hectares in 2003 to 3.2 million hectares in 2016 (the decrease of 1.8 times). These changes were due to the expansion of maize crop area (3.1 times), as well as sunflower and soybeans crop areas", he pointed out.

Viktor Kirichenko said that as of 2016, Ukraine is the fourth world largest producer and exporter of barley (9.7 million tonnes, 6.75% of world production) after the European Union (59.6 million tons, 41.45 %), Russia (18.0 mln. tons, 12.52%) and Australia (9.9 million tons, 6.75%). The expert noted that the revenue from the export of barley is around $800 million.

We would like to remind that in 2015/16 MY Ukraine exported 8.8 million tons of barley. Read more in the infobook Agribusiness 2015.