Most of Ukraine's winter grain crops are in a good or satisfactory condition as of February 19, thanks to favourable weather, agriculture minister Maksim Martyniuk said on Monday. The percentage of crops in good and satisfactory condition totalled 87 percent, or 6.3 million hectares, while the share of crops in a poor state was 13 percent, or 971,000 hectares, Martyniuk said on Facebook.

Ukraine sowed 7.3 million hectares to winter grains, including 6.3 million hectares of wheat, 813,000 hectares of barley and 150,000 hectares of rye. UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy has said that Ukraine's 2018 grain harvest was likely to decline by 2 percent from a year ago to 61.1 million tonnes because of a smaller wheat crop.

Copyright Reuters, 2018