In the region of interest, the reporting period covers the harvest of summer crops (maize, sugar beet, sunflower) and the early vegetative stages of winter crops (winter wheat and winter barley). (See figure 2.5).

Less than half of the arable land is currently cropped (un cropped arable land (UAL) ratio 47 percent). More than 80 percent of the un cropped areas are distributed in Russia with some scattered plots along its border with Belarus and Ukraine (figure 2.5b). At MPZ scale, UAL drops by 1.9 percent compared with the recent five-year average, indicating an overall effort on crop land expansion in the region. However, Russia is the only country that presents an increased UAL compared with the previous year and recent five-year average (see Onlineresources: C. Time series of indicators). This finding is consistent with the estimation from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture that the winter wheat planted area in 2013 is lower than the planted area last year, according to HGCA crop updates.

Figure 2.5. Central Europe and Western Russia MPZ: Farming intensity and stress