All Ukrainian regions have started 2024 sowing and have seeded 852,100 hectares of spring crops, the agriculture ministry said on Friday.

Farmers have also started sowing sunflower, sugar beet and soybeans, the ministry said in a statement.

The sowing area includes 118,300 hectares of spring wheat, 543,200 hectares of spring barley, 119,000 hectares of peas and 62,400 hectares of oats, it said.

The ministry told Reuters this month that farmers could sharply increase the area sown with soybeans this year to 2.199 million hectares from 1.780 million hectares in 2023 because soybeans were almost the only profitable crop in 2023.

Farmers might also reduce corn sowing area by 4.5% to 3.863 million hectares from the 4.043 million sowed in 2023.

The ministry said farmers had sown 58,700 hectares for sugar beet, 35,700 hectares for sunflower and 1,600 hectares for soy beans as of April 5. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Jason Neely)