July 16, 2010

Russia not looking at grain imports despite drought

The country still has sufficient grain inventories and will not import grain amid droughts, said Valentin Denisov, the chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation on Agrarian issues. 

According to him, the country has enough supplies of feed and milling grain. Intervention fund inventories total 9.5 million tonnes. As of July 1, the carry-over stocks totalled 24 million tonnes.

The chairman stated that if the harvest totals 70-75 million tonnes of grains, the capacity of general resources is enough for milling and fodder demands.

A state of emergency due to droughts has been announced in 17 regions and sowings perished throughout 9.5 million ha.