According to the estimations compiled by analysts, a rise in prices for the sowing campaign of 2015 will not have an impact on the yield of oil-bearing crops in Ukraine
A preliminary study showed that the cost of sowing season would go by 150-300% (per cent), while the amount of harvest would decrease by 20%.
The Minystry of Agricultural policy of Ukraine estimates that this year’s sowing campaign will reach the cost of 60 milliards of hryvnias. Meanwhile, the deficit of means constitute about 10-12 milliards of hryvnias.
Unfortunately, the problem of attracting supplementary capital remains unsolved for the agrarians. Yaroslav Krasnopolskyy, the Undersecretary of Agricultural policy, informed that the banks are ready to consider the corn of the future harvest as a deposit, moreover the amount of this harvest must account for 20% of the required sum of a loan, which in its turn, is unacceptable due to the current situation. This difficulty could be resolved in part by attracting the means from Agriculture Fund, the direction of which is prepared to allocate 1,5 milliard of hryvnias for the realization of sowing campaign.
However, all these arrangements might turn out insufficient as the major heads of expenditure include fertilization and fuel. Provision of fuel constitute about 85%, and the shortage is stocked up by the means of direct purchases offered by suppliers. Provision of fertilizers is situated at the level of 60%, taking into account the fact that the prices for fertilizers raised at the beginning of the year by 150-200%. Nevertheless, the manufacturers of chemical fertilizers claim that even this high rice of prices is not quite profitable for them and that their enterprises have to function at a loss.
Henadiy Novikov, the president of Agricultural Union of Ukraine, considers that the harvest of 2015 may decline by 20% in comparison with that of the previous year as a consequence of a rather scanty backing for all sowing activities.
What concerns the predictions for the yield of oil-bearing crops, it can eventually surpass the figures of the past year by 16 millions of tons. The main reason for that lies in a probable refusal of agrarians to grow maize, and in their having an evident preference for growing rape and soya. Decisions of this kind are made owing largely to a noticeable aggravation of the situation at the oil products market and due to a considerable drop of demand for biofluel, the major raw material of which is maize. If prices continue to fall, it will lead to an ineluctable large-scale replacement of maize by rape and soya mainly because of their high profitability.
