IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russia's Grains Crop May Reach 92 Million Tons, Ikar Says

Bloomberg

Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's grains crop will be between 90 million and 92 million metric tons this marketing year and exports may exceed 20 million tons, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies said.

The country exported more than 2 million tons last month, when the new marketing year began, and will ship 3 million tons in August, Dmitry Rylko, general director of the Moscow-based institute, also known as Ikar, said today at an international grains conference in Rostov-on-Don, southwestern Russia.

The country resumed grain exports in July after banning overseas sales in August because of the worst drought in at least 50 years. Russia shipped 4.5 million tons of grains last marketing season, Rylko said. The government yesterday raised its grain-export forecast for this year for the third time in as many weeks, to as much as 23 million tons as crops recover. It maintained its crop forecast of 85 million to 90 million tons this year, after the harvest shrank to 60.9 million tons last year.

Russia's wheat yields grew 2.3 percent a year on average in the 1991-2009 period, making the country the leader in yield gains among top exporting nations, according to the institute. China had the second-highest growth of 2.1 percent a year, followed by 1.8 percent in Kazakhstan, 1.2 percent in Canada, 0.88 percent in the U.S., 0.87 percent in Germany, 0.4 percent in Argentina and 0.3 percent in France, Rylko said.

Investment and better equipment were the main reasons for the growth in yields, he said.

The institute raised its crop forecast from a previous estimate of 89.5 million tons on high grain yields in the Ural federal district and favorable weather, Ikar grain analyst Oleg Sukhanov said in an interview at the conference.

30.08.11

All viewing: 90
Discuss