Kazakhstan has credited "divine forces" for helping a rise of up to 20% in its forecast grain harvest this year, just as neighbouring Ukraine revealed it expected a steep fall.

Arman Yevniyev, Kazakhstan's deputy agriculture minister, said that Central Asia's biggest grain exporter had "all the reason to believe that this year's crop will be 15-20% higher than that of last year".

The statement implies a grain harvest of 17.9m -18.7m tonnes this summer, compared with 15.6m in 2008.

Mr Yevniyev credited the improvement in part to the celestial blessing of abundant spring rainfall.

"Divine forces are probably on our side," he said.

On June 7, Mr Yevniyev also said that Kazakhstan had increased grain plantings by some 700,000 hectares this year.

Ukraine pain

The forecast came as Ukraine said that it expected its wheat harvest to drop from 25.9m tonnes in 2008 to about 20m tonnes this year, a figure, nonetheless, ahead of US estimates of a 19m-tonne harvest.

Ukraine's barley harvest would fall from 12.6m tonnes to about 10m tonnes, the country's agriculture minister, Yuri Melnyk, added.

The falls would feed through into slump of up to 40% in grain exports, which could come in at between 15m and 17m tonnes in 2009-10.

Dangers ahead

While Kazakhstan appears to have played catch up with its neighbour, the country's has yet to complete the early summer period which is crucial for yields.

"The most important weather-related [wheat] yield factor is June and July precipitation," a report by a US attaché in April said.

"Dry weather in June and July will typically result in a low yield."