IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russia winter grain crop conditions worse than average

Reuters

MOSCOW, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Russia's winter grain plantings are in a worse condition than historical averages in the main southern breadbasket regions, while the Volga and the Central regions are shaping up better, data from the country's top weather forecaster showed on Friday.

The percentage of plantings, deemed to be in a poor state, in Russia's South region stood at 12, above an average 7.6 percent seen in 2007-2011, the table of the Hydrometcentre weather forecasting service, seen by Reuters, showed.

In the North Caucasus region, the percentage of crops in poor conditions is 17, worse than the multi-year average of 6.9 percent.

"There are concerns but it is warm there and ... conditions will improve," Anna Strashnaya, the head of the agricultural forecasting department at the service, told Reuters.

Russia faces temperatures above normal levels in December, while the majority of the country will see an average level of precipitation, a map, published on the service website www.meteoinfo.ru, showed.

The situation in the main growing regions is worse than last year, when the percent of weak crops in the South region was at 9 and at 13 percent in the North Caucasus region, according to Russia's Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR).

"The situation looks like it will be pretty hard to improve on," Dmitry Rylko, the head of IKAR, said.

30.11.12

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