When I was approached by Farmers Review to write a regular blog post from Ukraine and Russia for their excellent website, with my tongue planted firmly in cheek I suggested we called it “Know Your Enemy”.

Then I started to give it some thought and thought actually that’s not a bad idea.

Except not the enemy bit, but to know about what goes on in one of the largest grain producing and exporting regions in the world from someone who was there.

“Know your farming neighbours and understand the competition a little bit better” is a cumbersome but perhaps more accurate title.

A little bit of background and geography then.

Ukraine is about the size of France, nearly all flat and accounts for 12% of the European arable land area.  If you look at any map of Europe Ukraine is basically there, in your face.

England play Ukraine in a world cup qualifier next month.

Russia is massive with crops grown from the borders of Ukraine and Belarus to western Siberia with the Central, Southern and Volga regions accounting for the lion’s share of production.

Both countries grow the main commodities wheat, barley, oilseed rape, sunflowers, soya, maize and other less traded crops like rye, oats, linseed, buckwheat and millet along with potatoes, sugar beet and vegetables.

Despite common misconception it is not perpetual snow and ice; the summers are long and hot and the winters are cold hopefully with snow to protect overwintering crops.

This year weather has been kind with some drought early on in eastern Ukraine and parts of Russia but good conditions for the start of grain and rape harvest.

Early indications are that this is going to be a good harvest with yields up 20-30% on last year and some commentators suggesting it could be an all-time record harvest for Ukraine.

Officially Ukraine early grain harvest is 90% complete although when you see how much is still in the field it’s clearly untrue (ex-soviet countries tend to have a bit of a problem when it comes to accurate production statistics).  Yields are currently running at wheat 3.4mt/ha; barley 2.8mt/ha and rapeseed 2.3mt/ha.

Russia is about a quarter of the way through with yields of wheat at 3.1mt/ha; barley 2.4mt/ha and rapeseed 1.7mt/ha.

Yields are low when compared to other European countries.  Out of the EU27 ten year average wheat yield, Ukraine ranks 24 just ahead of Greece and Cyprus.

But imagine for a minute Ukraine got its act together and increased wheat yield from a rather paltry 3.5 tonnes to a respectable and achievable 5.0 tonnes.

That would mean another 10 million tonnes of wheat looking for a new home!

That is worth knowing your neighbours and understanding the competition a little bit better.