Yuri Melnyk, Ukraine's farm minister, has joined the growing chorus warning of the danger posed by drought to newly-sown grain, saying it could lead to a second successive year of falling production.

Mr Melynk highlighted "serious worries" in areas, including the country's main grain-growing areas, which had not received rainfall for up to two months.

"We see no rain in most parts of Ukraine," he said. "We have sown winter grains but crops have not sprouted yet."

The dearth of soil moisture in areas including Cherkasy, Kiev and Odessa could leave grain production falling again, after a drop to 45m tonnes this year from 53.3m tonnes in 2008.

Widespread warnings 

Mr Melynk's comments follow a series of alerts over Ukraine's drought from observers including state weather forecasts, Kiev-based analyst UkrAgroConsult and Paris's Agritel.

Landkom, the Ukraine farming group, warned last week that "the continued dry summer remains a risk for Landkom and other farming operators".

While growers in many European areas have some latitude in winter sowings, Ukraine is limited by the need to get crops well developed in time for what is typically a hard winter.

"Whilst they have carried on drilling, [Ukraine] growers there are concerned that they will not get enough moisture for the crop to develop sufficiently to be winter-hardy before the frost arrives," Hugh Schryver, a UK-based Glencore analyst, said.

Winter plantings typically account for the great majority of plantings for most grains in Ukraine, bar barley which is more usually a spring-sown crop.

About 95% of wheat is winter sown, and all but a fraction of rye.