Alpcot Agro has set-up a team to oversee the disposal of Ukrainian land following the takeover of Landkom International, but is not expecting any imminent deals as it prepares land for sale.

Alpcot is working through the list of potential land for sale "to ensure it is properly structured with the proper legal entity", Stephen Pickup, the group's finance director, said.

This meant the group was "not likely" to see any deals in the "next month or two", although "progress" was likely by the end of the year.

"It is easy to talk about doing a deal. But agreeing a deal where someone hand over money, you get a lot of false starts," Mr Pickup told Agrimoney.com.

'More reliable weather'

The group - which owns 96,600 hectares in Ukraine, mostly gained with Landkom - is considering the sale of land in central areas, such as in Zhytomyr obslast where, according to Landkom, "rainfall is less than western Ukraine, but soil quality is excellent".

Alpcot is to focus its Ukrainian operations on western areas, where it said on Thursday "more reliable weather, especially rainfall, aids the production of the group's key crops".

Disposals in the centre would "provide cash proceeds to the group and permit more efficient logistics for farming operations", said the group, whose sale plans come amid a legal shake-up which may make it easier for foreigners to acquire agricultural land.

'Water deficit'

The comments follow a difficult period for farmers in many parts of Ukraine, hit by dryness during the autumn sowing period, winter cold without protective snow cover, and then dryness in the spring too.

The country's wheat crop, which is nearly all autumn sown, is expected to near-halve to 12m tonnes this year, farm officials the state weather centre said on Monday.

Agritel on Thursday highlighted a continued "water deficit" in the south and east of Ukraine, but flagged rain central, western and northern areas.

Crop losses 

Alpcot Agro itself lost some 4,000 hectares of Ukraine crops to winterkill - a factor in a downgrade on Thursday to 54,400 hectares in its estimate for harvested area this year, from a March forecast of 60,000-70,000 hectares.

The group also revealed that soybeans and sunflowers would play a smaller role in sowing schemes than in Landkom's regime, with Alpcot expecting to "focus crop production on rapeseed and wheat for winter crops, and corn as the main spring crop".

Alpcot Agro shares stood unchanged at SEK8.00 in morning deals in Stockholm.