Ukraine expects to increase corn area between 5 and 10% in 2013

Ukraine is the fourth biggest corn exporter of the world and now intends to expand its corn planted area between 5 and 10% in 2013. An agricultural authority said the idea is to ensure bigger harvests.

The chief of the planting department of the Ministry of Agriculture of Ukraine, Oleksander Demidov said the country has already increased its planted area in 2012 on one million hectares, reaching 4.5 million hectares.
 
In the last year, Ukraine boosted its corn production to a record of 22.7 million tons. For the sake of comparison, numbers from five years earlier show a crop of only five million tons.
 
The Ministry of Agriculture, Mykola Prysyazhnnyuk said this week the country should export up to 14 million tons of corn in the season 2012/13. According to him, Ukraine could send most part of its production to China. Some analysts believe, by the way, that the country could compete with the US over the Chinese corn imports in the future.