Ukraine has exported 1.16 million tonnes of rapeseed so far in the 2012/13 season against 695,000 tonnes in the same period in 2011/12, Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk said on Friday. "Farmers harvested about 1.2 million tonnes of rapeseed this year and almost all of that volume will be exported," Prysyazhnyuk said in a statement.

Ukraine, which harvested 1.438 million tonnes of rapeseed in 2011, exported a total of 1.2 million tonnes of the commodity in 2011/12. Prysyazhnyuk said that this season Ukraine exported rapeseed mostly to Poland (304,000 tonnes), Belgium (216,000 tonnes), France (183,000 tonnes) and the Netherlands (180,000 tonnes).

Ukraine has gradually decreased rapeseed production over the last few years from a record output of about 3.0 million tonnes in 2008 due to unfavourable prices and difficulties in planting. The former Soviet republic's rapeseed harvest averaged 390,000 in 2001-2006.

Copyright Reuters, 2012