When ULF exports corn to China, it will make Ukraine the first country outside the Americas to do so. And with China's population becoming larger, and richer, China is on track to overtake Japan as the world's largest corn importer.
In Lokhvitsa, a three-hour drive east of Kyiv, Chinese money is financing construction of six grain elevators. Building for the Chinese market, ULF will soon have almost two million tons of elevator storage capacity.
At the elevators, and in the fields, the equipment is largely American. In a wheat field, a fleet of four half-million-dollar John Deere combines is harvesting and threshing.
With investments like these, ULF grain yields per acre are now halfway between Ukrainian averages and the high yields of the American Midwest. But, just as in the United States, farming depends on the weather.
Across the Black Sea region - in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan - drought this year is pushing harvests down by 15 to 20 percent. Yuri Scherbak, the ULF manager in Ukraine, predicts that his own corn and wheat crops will be down by about 15 percent.
“This year, unfortunately, we are expecting a bit of a drop in production,” he said. “And the main reason, while we are in a period of drought, is the decrease in quantity of precipitation."
Traditionally, the Black Sea region is the main source of wheat for North Africa and the Middle East.
But this year, on the supply side, Russia may have to suspend exports. And on the demand side, Africa and the Middle East are now competing with China.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25