"Undoubtedly, this year's harvest will be worse than last year - [hot] weather and a drought have created conditions that will damage crops," Mykola Azarov said. "However, we have enough reserves of grain harvested in 2006 and 2005."
The minister said there were no objective reasons to raise bread prices. However, bread prices have slightly gone up in six Ukrainian regions.
Azarov urged relevant ministries and governors of the affected regions to take all measures to cut bread prices. He also suggested that "the hysteria about the government's incapability to control the situation on the grain market" was being provoked by those members of the Tymoshenko Bloc who own bakeries.
Agriculture minister in Ukraine's Crimea, Pavlo Akimov, said that high air temperatures (up to 31-35 degrees Celsius) and soil temperatures (up to 45-46 degrees Celsius) in May, as well as a lack of rain had damaged winter and spring grains, especially barley, oats and grain legumes.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Vyktor Yanukovych said Wednesday he would fire three relevant ministers unless they brought the situation on the bread market back to normal within a week.
About 400,000 hectares of crops have failed so far.
