Ukraine has started the harvesting campaign of early grain cereals, an agriculture ministry source told recently.

Farmers as of June 21, 2010, threshed the first 238 000 tones of cereals on almost 90 000 hectares out of the planned 12.045 million hectares, the source said.

The average crop capacity of early cereal crops is 26 centners per hectare.

Ukrainian farmers have already launched harvesting barley, wheat and rapeseed grains. As of June 21, 2010, they threshed 238 000 tones of barley from 89 500 hectares, with the crop yield being 26 centners per hectare. They also threshed 800 tones of wheat from 350 hectares, with the crop yield being 23 centners per hectare and 8 200 tones of rapeseed crops on 4 600 hectares with the crop yield being 12.9 centners per hectare.

According to the reported data, the harvesting campaign is laucnhed under way in Crimea, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson region.

As was noted, Ukraine's agriculture ministry hopes a harvest of 46-47 million tones of cereals in 2010, whereas Ukraine harvested 47 million tones of grain in 2009.