Drought Dominates Ukrainian Winter Grain Sowing Fields, Forecasters Say

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian farmers have started sowing winter grain crops for the 2025 harvest, but the availability of moisture in the soil in most regions of Ukraine is extremely low, state weather forecasters said on Wednesday.

In recent years, Ukraine has often experienced a lack of soil moisture during autumn sowing, but farmers are hoping that a wet and mild winter and favourable weather in the spring will allow for a good harvest.

"Drought continued and intensified in the fields intended for sowing next year's winter crop," forecasters said in a report.

"After the July heatwave, in August, amid a severe precipitation deficit and high temperatures, soil and atmospheric drought intensified in the southern, central and eastern regions, spreading to about 60-70% of the area, including the western regions," they noted.

Ukrainian agriculture ministry said this week that farmers had started winter grain sowing for the 2025 harvest, seeding the first 27,700 hectares of winter wheat.

Winter wheat generally accounts for 95% of overall Ukrainian wheat output each year.

Ukraine has completed the 2024 wheat harvest, threshing 21.8 million tons of the commodity, compared with more than 22 million tons in 2023.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Louise Heavens)