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