“The problem is not the weather, but the lack of resources,” Kozachenko on the sowing campaign
8 April 14:40
OPINION
The current drop in temperature has a negative impact on the sowing campaign, but it will not be decisive for the future harvest. This is the opinion of Leonid Kozachenko, President of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation. The expert shared with Kommersant Ukrainian
“This weather will have a negative impact on the process, not in the sense that people will stop sowing. I think the sowing campaign will continue in the south of Ukraine anyway. But it will have a negative impact on all plants. These are, first of all, grain crops that are already being sown, and sugar beet, which is very sensitive to the weather,”
– says the farmer exclusively for
However, he does not believe that this weather will cause any catastrophic events for the agricultural sector. According to Kozachenko, a million hectares of land have already been sown in Ukraine, and sowing is still going on in the south of the country.
“Spring crops that have already sprouted, barley, for example, can suffer losses of up to 20 percent of what has sprouted. It depends on the condition of the barley, how it germinated. We also started sowing sugar beet. Where it has sprouted, there will be problems. But so far, there is no catastrophe,”
– says the farmer and adds that there will be no significant losses if the weather obstacles to the sowing season pass in 2-3 days.
However, forecasters say that the current weather will last a little longer – until the end of this week.
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The problem is not in the climate
The expert emphasizes something else. He argues that it is not so much a matter of climate and weather problems as the actual inability to comply with the necessary cultivation technologies everywhere.
“We do not have enough material resources to comply with the cultivation technology. This is a problem,”
– he says.
With the predicted moisture deficit, Ukraine has lost huge areas of irrigation, he adds, particularly in the Kyiv region:
“Only one hydroelectric power plant, which was destroyed by the enemy, irrigated almost 400 thousand hectares of land. This is a loss that will affect the harvest more negatively than the current temperature drop of 4 days.”
