Over the past week, Ukrainian farmers have sown grain and leguminous crops on 585,200 hectares of compared to 1.106 million hectares the previous week and 1.267 million hectares a week earlier, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food said on Friday.

According to its data, as of May 25, the area under spring cereals and legumes reached 5.278 million hectares, or about 96.7% of the planned area.

The areas sown in the spring are even less than last year, when as of May 26 they reached 5.905 million hectares, but the gap has narrowed again: in the same week in 2022, 267,100 0 hectares were sown.

The backlog is mainly formed due to the most popular crops – corn and spring barley, the crops of which are respectively 16.4% and 17.8% less than last year and are sown on 3.266 million hectares and 759,600 hectares. For corn, they have already exceeded the forecast of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of 3.618 million hectares, while for barley they are noticeably lower than the expected 1.041 million hectares.

At the same time, the area under other grain crops is already larger than a year ago. This applies to spring wheat – 261,900 hectares (38.4% more), buckwheat – 83,100 hectares (44.0%), millet – 46,100 hectares (11.6%) and peas – 135,600 hectares (7.7%).

As the Ministry of Agrarian Policy said, the leaders in field work with grains and legumes this week were the agrarians of northernmost Chernihiv region with 94,500 hectares, and most of all spring grain crops in Poltava region with 626,000 hectares.

According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, 4.616 million hectares are occupied by sunflower, which is already 8.2% higher than last year, but still significantly lower than expected at 5.641 million hectares. Most of all, this oilseed crop is occupied in Kirovohrad region – 576,000 hectares.

The sown area under sugar beet, on the contrary, exceeded the forecast of 220,000 hectares and reached 240,900 hectares, which is a third more than last year on this date and even higher than in 2021, when they amounted to 226,000 hectares.

Soybean crops expanded to 1.636 million hectares and exceeded last year by 42%, and there is little left before the forecast of 1.841 million hectares. Kyiv region is in the lead with 188,800 hectares.

According to the ministry's forecast from the end of March, in 2023 the sown areas of grain and leguminous crops will be 10.24 million hectares, which is 1.4 million hectares less than in 2022, while the areas with oilseeds will be grow by 0.92 million hectares, to 8.85 million hectares, in particular, winter wheat crops will be sown on 4.166 million hectares (834,000 hectares less compared to the previous year), spring wheat on 285,000 hectares (67,000 hectares more), and winter barley on 536,000 hectares (255,000 hectares less).