Arab News | Third of Ukraine’s land faces moisture shortages, delaying sowing, minister says

KYIV: About 30 percent of Ukrainian farmland is facing moisture shortages, delaying the start of winter sowing, agriculture minister Taras Vysotskyi said on Friday.

Ukraine traditionally sows winter wheat, which accounts for more than 95 percent of its total wheat harvest, in autumn for harvesting in the summer of the following year.

The agriculture ministry and weather forecasters said this week that conditions in September remained unfavorable for sowing ‌winter wheat, ‌although some farmers have nevertheless begun ‌planting ⁠despite drought.

The ministry ⁠said farmers had sown 145,300 hectares of winter wheat as of September 16, or 3.2 percent of the expected area. Ukraine sowed 248,000 hectares of winter wheat at the same date in 2025.

Ukraine has often faced drought in August and September. However, farmers ⁠continue to sow winter crops in ‌the hope that a warm, ‌rainy autumn will offset the moisture deficit and ‌allow plants to develop sufficiently before winter.

SUNFLOWER OIL

Ukraine is ‌among the world’s major sunflower oil producers and exporters, and Vysotskyi said the country’s sunoil production totalled 4.3 million tons in the 2025/26 season which ended on August ‌31.

He said Ukraine exported 4.0 million tons of the commodity.

The country produced ⁠more ⁠than 5 million tons of sunoil in 2024/25 with exports of 4.7 million tons.

A sharp fall in the 2025 sunseed harvest caused by poor weather was the main reason for the decline in sunoil output.

Analysts see the 2026 sunseed crop at 13.6 million tons, which would allow production of 5.7 million tons of sunflower oil. They see sunoil exports at 5.3 million tons in 2026/27.

Vysotskyi said Ukraine had exported 131,000 tons of sunoil so far in September.