June 4, 2013

Russia's planted areas of agricultural crops face significant changes

Russia's structure of agricultural crops planted areas faced some significant changes in terms of its redistribution and the general increase of areas under the basic grains and oilseeds during the last decade.

According to Anna Burka, an analyst at APK-Inform, the planted areas under grains and leguminous crops in Russia increased from the level of 42.2 million hectares to 44.4 million hectares during 2003-12, providing the growth of their share in the general areas under agricultural crops from 53% to 58%. In the reporting period, the planted areas under oilseed crops also steadily increased - from 6.3 million hectares in 2003, to 10.1 million hectares in 2012 (up 59%), and the growth of their share in the general areas started from 8% to 13%, respectively.

The share of wheat in the general areas under grains increased from 53% to 56%; the share of corn - from 2% to 5%. At the same time, the share of barley declined from 24% to 20%, said Burka.

The analyst also added that, from 2003-12, the oilseed group showed a significant increase of the planted areas of three major crops: sunflower seed - from 5.3 million hectares to 6.5 million hectares, soy - from 0.6 million hectare to 1.5 million hectares, rapeseed - from 0.2 million hectare to 1.2 million hectares.

In the reporting period, there was observed a decline of the share of sunflower seed areas in the structure of planted areas under all oilseed crops - from 84% to 65%, explained Burka.

While speaking about the forecasts for the medium-term prospect, Burka noted the possibility of the continued growth of the planted areas of the major crops. Thus, by 2020 Russia is expected to increase the planted areas of wheat (to 26.5 million hectares), corn (to 2.7 million hectares), sunflower seed (to 7.8 million hectares), soy (to two million hectares) and rapeseed (to 1.6 million hectares). At the same time, the trend of barley areas reduction will continue from 8.8 million hectares in 2012, to 8.5 million hectares in 2020.