Ukraine wheat harvest forecast ‘well-below average’ – UN
The world wheat production is expected to be the second largest in history, with Ukraine harvest falling below average due to Russia’s full-scale invasion and unfavourable weather conditions.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the 2023 global wheat harvest is estimated at 786 million tonnes, which would be the second largest outturn on record, only 1.3 percent below the 2022 level.
In Ukraine, the wheat harvest will be much lower than average due to the war, FAO predicts.
"In Ukraine, the economic impacts of the war, including low farm-gate prices, dissuaded many farmers from planting wheat," the FAO forecast says.
"As a result, in addition to pockets of dryness in the southeast, a well below-average wheat harvest is forecast for 2023."
In the European Union, wheat production is expected to increase moderately year-on-year due to an expansion in plantings and generally good conditions at the start of spring, notwithstanding dryness in parts of Italy, Portugal and Spain.
And in the United States, with recent rains providing some relief and winter sowings up year-on-year, production is forecast to exceed the outturn in 2022.
Earlier, Ukraine’s ministry of agrarian policy forecast that Ukraine's gross harvest of grains and pulses would fall to 44.3 million tonnes in 2023, down from 53.1 million tonnes in the previous year.