Kornkammer Ukraine - Behauptung oder Tatsache: zur Getreidewirtschaft der Ukraine

The South of the old Russia, especially the Ukraine, has for generations been known as a granary. This statement is based on one hand on reports about the earth’s fertility, and on the other hand on formerly important exports of cereals; what is mostly neglected in corresponding discussions is the cereal economy’s dependence on the natural conditions and their changeability. Despite unfavourable economic circumstances as a whole, Russia still exported 10.6 million tons of cereals in 1904, for example. Since then, economic conditions have changed several times and there has been a clear increase in population. During the past decades, the cereal production of the Ukraine was sometimes nota in a position to meet the existing need. Owing to the natural geography of the Ukraine, the largest part of the agriculturally useful areas are situated within the natural vegetation zones of the forested steppe and of the prairie as well as in the region of continental and warmtemperate climate. This means that black earths and forest soils exist in large parts of the country, but at the same time, two thirds of the country surface receives too little precipitation and too much heat. Owing to the associated winter and summer conditions, several million hectares of winter wheat are year by year threatened both by freezing and by drought. Winter wheat has for a long time been the most cultivated crop plant. Its share is especially high in the Oblast Odessa district and in the north-south strip extending from Kharkov to the mouth of the Dnieper river and to the Azov Sea. In respect of area share, winter wheat is followed by spring barley, maïze, pulses and oats; their regional distribution is shown in table 2. The economic repurcussions following the seperation of the Ukraine from the Soviet Union in 1990/91 have remained moderate for cereal production. More important are the consequences resulting from inappropriate agricultural development over the preceding 20 years. Since in 1995, after half a century of directive agriculture in State farms and agricultural cooperatives, privatisation is still in the very first phases, new steps are only taken very hesitantly and the forces of the market economy are only slowly taking effect, directives on economic management are still necessary. But in addition to this, a new purchase price mechanism is being linked with the appeal to adapt the regional crop planning structures to the natural conditions and to the human need and the need of animals. A tax-in-kind was introduced by the State in order to ensure an approximately evenly distributed basic supply to the population. In order to avoid continuing large harvest losses, efforts are being taken to renew and to complete grain storage and milling capacities as well as to improve the trafic connections of the villages and public transport. Of continuing importance is foreplanning in arable farming since the previous predatory exploitation of the soil, i.e. discontinuance of crop rotation, incorrect cultivation, inappropriate irrigation, erosion-causing soil management weakened agriculture. Ukraine can again become a granary in the real sense of the word. To achieve this objective, agronomy and economy must once again be meaningfully linked and the farmer must once again play an active role.