Poor weather hits Ukraine milling wheat output -producers

Тhe share of milling wheat in Ukraine’s 2023 wheat harvest could fall to 40% from 70% in previous years because of poor weather, the Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC) said on Tuesday, warning of wider problems for global food supply. Ukraine is a traditional wheat grower but crop quality and the volume of wheat with sufficient protein content for milling depends largely on weather conditions.

“The key problem with the new harvest was its poor quality: due to weather conditions, the grain has a low protein content,” the UAC said in a statement. The council added that other European states also had a large volumes of feed wheat and the current 2023/24 season “will be problematic with the supply of food grains worldwide”.

Ukraine had harvested 12.5 million metric tons of wheat as of Aug. 4, with a yield of 4.64 tons per hectare. Traders union UGA this month said that Ukraine is able to harvest 20.2 million tons of wheat this year, the same as in 2022.

Tags: poor weather, Ukraine, harvest, wheat, crop, milling wheat, volume, quality