Maize Harvest Begins in Serbia, But Yields Are Poor

Farmers in Serbia have started harvesting maize, but the best fields are currently yielding up to around four tonnes per hectare, with some only a few hundred kilograms, which is 90 per cent below average.

 Dragan Kleut, president of the Banat Farmers' Credit Union, said that the harvest was now so bad that it had previously been predicted to be 80 per cent lower, but what was now being seen in the fields would be 90 per cent below average, with some fields yielding as little as 600 kilograms per hectare.

Draško Živković, president of the Stig and Mlava Farmers' Association in Malo Crniće, said that the mass harvest of maize had not yet started in the area, but that yields in fields where all agrotechnical measures such as weeding had been taken were only four tonnes per hectare, 30-40 per cent less than last year.

 Jovica Jakšić, president of the Independent Association of Serbian Farmers, who sowed 130 hectares of maize, said yields varied from region to region, but the common denominator was "catastrophic" yields, with some fields using all agrotechnical measures but yielding only 1.6 to 1.7 tonnes