Russia set to harvest huge grain crop

Russia's farm ministry has made an uncharacteristically upbeat start to its grains forecasting campaign, pegging the 2010 harvest at 95 million tonnes.

This forecast from deputy agriculture minister Sergey Korolev fell short of about two million tonnes from last year's harvest, which was considered a robust crop.

However, it is considerably more than the 85 million-tonne figure the ministry has stood by in recent seasons until most of the crop is safely in silos, even in 2008 as production jumped towards 108 million tonnes.

Korolev's estimate is in line with forecasts from analyst groups.