Ukraine and Russia crop and weather update

Reports of improved chances of rain in the FSU came true this week as light to moderate rain fell in parts of western Ukraine.

Eastern Ukraine and Russia remained dry with farmers in the regions telling me winter wheat is now in ear and starting to show visible signs of drought stress.

Substantial rains expected for Russia's southern district will help newly planted maize and sunflowers but will have a limited effect on these crops approaching the reproductive phase.

Talking of rape, it might just be me but all the stuff I have seen between Lviv in the west and Chernigov in the north looks a bit sickly.

Like that pale, runty kid who shuffled about at school perpetually sniffling and dribbling in to a snot rag.  It's all there just a bit weedy looking.

I'm putting it down to plants running out of steam in the longer than usual winter and it's taking longer than usual to bounce back.

The problem now is that the time left to bounce back is getting less with every day so the bounce will not be as high as we would have hoped.  I am anticipating a yield penalty.

Although corn and sunflower plantings have picked up the pace the Ministry of Agrarian Policy might be jumping the gun when they reported this week that 4.6min ha of maize (97% of the plan), 3.9min ha of sunflowers (99% of the plan) and 1.25min ha of soya (87%) had been planted.

Which for no reason at all reminds me of the story about the talented soviet aircraft designer Oleg Antanov who when looking to reduce weight on one of his aircraft designs decided not unreasonably to replace the four stroke back up generator with a lighter two stroke version.

When party officials got wind of this they told comrade Antanov that the step from four stroke to two stroke was too radical and revolutionary and insisted he used a three stroke engine instead!

Ukraine spring crops update

May and summer is well and truly here. 

The season went from deep winter to summer completely bypassing spring all in the space of a couple of weeks.

The end of March saw the mercury at minus 20 Celsius yet by the end of the April daytime highs were just short of 30 Celsius. 

Minus 20 to plus 29 in 30 days.  No wonder the roads are crap.

The meter deep snow that was present in April rapidly disappeared and slide off through the soil profile never to be seen again.

Field work started by the second week of April with planting underway by the third.

By the first week of May analysts started ringing the alarm bells that the ensuing drought was going to harm Ukraine's previously (like two weeks previously) forecasted record yields and unless it rained quickly famine was sure to follow.

Yet a quick look at the met data shows rainfall and soil moisture at or above the average so go figure.

On the ground no one is complaining of dry conditions just yet - apart from those in the East and South but they all ways do so there's no news there.

Winter conditions even with the late start have been favourable and most crops survived with negligible levels of winter kill; which means there isn't going to be a big upswing in spring planted crops particularly export friendly corn and barley.

Clear weather ahead means corn, sunflower and soya plantings are rapidly catching up, no doubt we will need some rain soon but it usually arrives at some point.

Prices have been buoyant of late with all the major commodities fetching prices at or very near to five year highs.  Is this the year farmers make money?

The Ukrainian China trade deal has started to take effect with local administrations now tasked with the job of sourcing 5mmt of corn to send to China by the end of the year.  The deal is the Ukrainian government will pay the farmer 700uah/mt (that's about €66 but likely to be a lot less once the hryvna devalues which is expected any time soon) and the balance based on the market value at delivery. 

No specific mention of when that balance will actually be paid.

The fertiliser supply chain issues seems to have righted itself just in the nick of time with fertiliser now turning up on farms as its being spread.

In summary, crops are looking good, summer is here, roads are still crap!

As another season gets underway I wish good luck to all farmers and use the quote that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher but everyday, three times a day you need a farmer.

Ukraine winter crops update

There has been a lot of snow over the last two weeks; two big snow storms hit the country stopping anything moving or much happening. 

It must have been big because even Kiev went in to lock down with reports of miles of abandoned lorries and cars blocking the streets.

One of my guys was unfortunate to be in that traffic and spent 14 hours trying to leave Kiev.  He said it was like a scene from a zombie movie with people wandering around randomly parked vehicles looking for help.

It might have been a lot of snow in a very short period of time but selling off all the snow ploughs and snow clearing equipment didn't help matters.

Our local administration demanded I gave him diesel to fuel a snow plough which turned out to be a converted tank as mysteriously his snow ploughs had all disappeared. Maybe under the snow.  

What's the impact on crops?  They should be OK but this winter is going on a long time and there is still a lot of snow sitting on top of the crops.

Official figures put 92% of winter crops in good to satisfactory condition.  All I see when I look is whitey white whiteness.

I'm sure the snow will eventually go, once it does I suspect we will see a higher than normal incidence of typhula in wheat and rape and oilseed crops that did not receive an autumn fungicide (pretty much everything) will see more plants die because of light leaf spot and phoma which will be incorrectly attributed to winter kill.

As snow melts it will make for very wet and cold soils, getting on with spring field work will be a challenge and spring plantings will be late.

All of this is compounded by the normal issues in Ukraine the main one being nitrogen fertiliser supply.  Delivery is being quoted around 60 days which puts it on farm end of May. 

Official figures suggest farms are in a good position with 40% of spring fertiliser paid for.  What they fail to mention is how much of that has been delivered?

One final thought, how does the guy who drives the snow plough get to work in the morning?

Chinese Ukrainian agricultural cooperation

I've seen plenty of Chinese delegations whizzing in and out of Kyiv's top hotels over the last couple of years and it seems to be paying dividends.

Trade between the two countries now exceeds 10 billion usd.

China, the worlds largest consumer of corn is planning to buy 3.0mmt annually over the coming years. 

Well done Ukraine for securing a major buyer.

Seemingly China sees Ukraine as a strategically important partner in securing food supplies and has provided a 3 billion usd loan to help bring the countries farming up to scratch. 

I suspect the bulk of this wont end up anywhere near a farm and what does will be carved up by various agencies trying get a slice of the action.

Although 3 billion usd is not to be sniffed at, to keep it in context I estimate Ukraine needs about 50 billion usd in to farming alone plus further significant investment in agricultural education to update the workforce plus a large cash injection to improve research, plant breeding and animal genetics plus a further huge amount for infrastructure, transports, drying and storage and if there's anything left over something to rebrand Ukraine as an international food producer. 

Each journey starts with the first step.

It's been snowing in England...

...and the BBC react as if it's the end of the world; cold weather warnings; ice warnings; how to drive in the snow; band of snow heads across the UK and those ubiquitous saccharine photos of snow covered Robins and Cathedrals.

Snow.  It's white. Its cold. It comes every winter to vast regions of the world. Millions of people live with it, sometimes people die of it, it looks nice because it covers up all the crap, it fills in the potholes making driving slightly more pleasurable if not slightly more dangerous. 

It's snow, it's not news unless it's a problem, man up BBC and get back to the job of reporting and not churning out pointless tosh.

Here's a photo of snow.

Ukraine to Canada

There are a lot of similarities between Ukraine and Canada, not least they are both massive and driving around is a test of endurance. 

The climate is not too different and the farming could learn a thing or two from each other.

My new pal Brian has a Farm Consultancy  business (Prairie Farm Consulting) in Canada on the Saskatchewan Manitoba border helping farmers manage their business by working out the true cost of production. 

Essential but often tedious when stuff needs to be done outside.

Check out the link for a full list of services and see if he can help you.

Ukraine increasing agricultural exports

Ukraine increased agricultural exports by nearly 40% in 2012 to 17 billion usd.

This included meat, fish, dairy, poultry, vegetables, veg oil, sugar, wine, nuts and apples as well as 6.7mmt of wheat.

Export destinations included the EU and CIS with Austria having a taste for Ukrainian apples; Poland unsurprisingly buying rye; Egypt and Spain are the largest buyers of Ukrainian wheat and Saudi Arabia taking three quarters of Ukrainian barley (I wonder what they do with that?).

Other interesting statistics from 2011 worth noting are Ukraine is still the top barley exporter (I think that might change this year); is the third largest maize supplier (second to US and Argentina); is the worlds largest sunflower exporter; is the fourth largest potato producer and is the worlds fifth largest walnut producer.

Russian 2012 grain crop update

The Russian Ministry of Agriculture peg the 2012 grain crop at 70.7mmt, down 25% from 94.2mmt a year ago.  They also suggest that quality might be up with 4.6% larger portion of milling wheat than in 2011.

Black sea crop condition

Official and unofficial crop condition reports from Ukraine are bullish with 90% plus of winter grains in the good to excellent category. 

Autumn rains helped establishment and those crops are now by and large safely tucked up under a blanket of snow.

A different situation is emerging further east in Russia. 

A recent and rapid drop in temperature has coincided with no snow cover in several grain growing regions. 

Low temperatures with little in the way of protective snow will result in higher than normal plant death and a corresponding drop in yield.

So in a nutshell; Ukraine is set for a bumper 2013 harvest and Russia is set for a catastrophic 2013 harvest.

But it is only January and there is a lot of season yet to go.

Summary 2011-2012

Dry 2011 autumn

Cold winter

Very low levels of winter kill

Normal spring rainfall

Autumn planted crop yields down

Wet autumn

Prices up

Don't look back in anger...2012 review

The last twelve months has been busy busy busy; the shortage of blog posts attest to that.  A new baby due in the new year means I make no promises that my output will increase in 2013 but we'll see.

 

2012 started cold, very cold even by Ukrainian standards with temperatures in January falling as low as -35 Celsius and grain markets reacted accordingly.

 

One of the mysteries to me that is why does a rumour in January about a crop that can’t be seen under a thick blanket of snow, that won’t be harvested until August affect the grain price in Chicago?

 

That thick blanket of insulating snow meant there was no significant additional winter-kill and crops came out of the winter pretty much in the same condition as they went in.  The rumours were in fact just that; rumours.

 

Drought in the autumn had meant germination was patchy and poor looking wheat and rape going in to the winter still looked poor once the snow melted but it was all still there.

 

By the end of February temperatures returned to normal and spring weather started to arrive in March.

 

Soils quickly soaked up the melt water and field work started almost immediately giving some indication how dry the soils had been.

 

Planting started in April with record hectares of maize going in on the back of encouragement from the local administration.

 

Rain and warm temperatures in May saw crops speed through the growth stages with the first barley crops being cut in Crimea by the end of June.

 

Harvest was well underway by August with oilseed rape up on last year with official figures at 2.2mt/ha and wheat down at less than 3.0mt/ha.

 

New crop rape, wheat and barley started going back in to the ground in September in to pretty much ideal conditions, moist warm soils and warm weather encouraged good germination and early plant growth; very different to 2012.

 

October and an election saw the ruling party retain majority.

 

The rest of the harvest progressed through the autumn with official figures currently running at sunflowers 1.6mt/ha; maize 4.7mt/ha; soya 1.7mt/ha.

 

The wheat export ban came in to force in November then was off then back on again then no one seemed to know for sure.  It was reported that traders and the government agreed that once wheat exports exceed 5.5mmt a voluntarily restriction would come in to force.  At the time of writing export figures run at 5.6mmt.

 

Winter has arrived two weeks early with snow and sub-zero temperatures drawing the season to an early close.

 

In summary 2012 was a reasonable farming year but another difficult year in which to do business.

The boys are back in town...

Actually the boys are in this particular town for the first time the day before the election in October, with the boys being the German heavy metal outfit the Skorpions and the boys being well in to their fifties.

A fairly tortuous way of saying once again the Skorpions are touring Ukraine despite being here in 2010 on their much acclaimed farewell tour.

Talking of aging rock stars have you seen Angus Young lately? 

I enjoyed AC-DC when I was twelve, fond memories rocking out at the school disco and I was dumb struck with the rest of the rocking world when Bon Scott drowned in his own puke.  But for crying out load Angus it's time to change the image.  Hang up the school uniform for pity's sake, you look like one of the Krankies. 

Wearing a school uniform in your twenties was always a bit weird but now you're in your fifties it's just plain unpleasant.

You shook me all night long indeed.

Cool weather helped Ukraine corn pollination

The cool spell during pollination helped ensure a full seed set as seen in this picture taken today of a fairly typical example in western Ukraine.

Regular rain events have helped grain fill and I think we might be looking at some fairly hefty crops come harvest.

However my sources are telling me a different picture is emerging in eastern Ukraine with farmers starting to harvest corn crops at very, very low yields.

While it's always difficult to get reliable data on how much crop is grown what is true is the eastern regions account for 30 to 40% of the arable growing area.

So while we might see bumper crops in the west this will probably be offset by low yields in the east.