IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Rains add risks for Russia's winter grains sowing - analysts

Reuters

MOSCOW, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Leading grains exporter Russia faces growing risks to its 2014 harvest due to bad weather and sowing conditions, analysts and an official said on Monday.

Russia, historically the world's third largest wheat exporter, is expected to boost the 2013 wheat harvest by one-third to 50 million tonnes, of which 43 million tonnes has already been harvested.

Winter grains sowing for next year's harvest is going simultaneously and has fallen behind the optimal schedule due to persistent rain in some regions of European Russia, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) said.

"This increases the risk of potential winterkill and is starting to cause worries," Dmitry Rylko, the head of IKAR, said in a note.

Russia's winter grains were sown on 4.9 million hectares, or 29.7 percent of a plan as of Sept. 13, compared to 6.0 million hectares at the same date a year ago, according to the Agriculture ministry data.

Russia plans to sow 16.4 million hectares with all winter grains this year, down from 16.7 million hectares a year ago. Winter wheat usually accounts for about 40 percent of the total wheat planting area.

Russia's Southern Federal District, the main exporting region, is also behind schedule, but still has more than a month to go and is able to fix the delay quickly, Andrei Sizov, chief executive of Sovecon analysts, said.

"They are able to continue sowing even in the second half of October and need only one week of dry weather," he said.

Worries about Russia's winter grains are mainly focused on the Central Federal District, which is behind the optimal deadline, the state weather forecaster said.

"(Perfect) timings are slipping away," Anna Strashnaya, the head of agricultural weather forecasting at Hydrometcentre, said. "There is a problem in Bryansk, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan and Tula regions."

SovEcon's main worries were over the Volgograd area, Sizov said.

Rainy weather is unlikely to bring significant relief during coming days, the Hydrometcentre map shows. Heavy rains are expected in the Southern Federal District on Monday and in some parts of the Central and Volga District on Tuesday.

16.09.13

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