Credit: REUTERS/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKOKYIV, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine's grain harvest this year is exceeding expectations and could be 5% higher than in 2022 thanks to favourable weather, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Saturday.
Ukraine is a major global grain producer and exporter but its production has been affected by Russia's full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.
"This (the harvest) is more than expected; thanks to good weather and rains in the summer, production could be 5% higher than in 2022," Taras Vysotskyi, the first deputy agriculture minister, told national television.
He did not give an estimated volume for the harvest, but said farmers had already threshed around 23 million metric tons of grain.
The ministry said this week it saw 2023 grain output at around 56.4 million tons, or 2% more than in 2022.
It also said farmers had harvested 17.7 million tons of wheat and 4.9 million tons of barley as of Aug. 11, and the grain yield averaged 4.37 tons per hectare.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk Editing by Mark Potter)
((pavel.polityuk@tr.com; +380 44 2449150; Reuters Messaging: pavel.polityuk.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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