July 26, 2013

Russia's soy market can be called as the most dynamically developing segment of the oilseeds industry as it showed steadily rising rates of production during the several recent years.

Thus, in 2000 production volumes of the oilseed totalled 342,000 tonnes, in 2007 - 650,000 tonnes, and in 2012 Russia harvested the record volumes of 1.8 million tonnes. At the same time, it is worth noting that during recent six years the soy production continued increasing annually.

The process of soy growing in Russia can be called as mainly extensive rather than intensive one, due to increasing of the production primarily at the expense of widening of the planted areas, but not increasing of the yield indices. However, it is worth noting that during several recent years the oilseed yield slightly rose, reaching the record high level in 2011 (1.48 tonnes/hectare). In 2012 the yield of the oilseed crop in the Russian Federation totalled 1.31 tonnes/hectare.

Meanwhile, according to the official statistics data, in June 2013 the Russian Federation imported nearly 91,300 tonnes of soy, up 3.4 times compared with the previous month. We should note that the average monthly index during September-May period totalled 50,600 tonnes.

Growing of the imports in June was caused by an increase of soy shipments from the main supplier - Paraguay (97%), and also Ukraine (3%). During the 10 months of 2012-13 marketing year, Russia imported 546,800 tonnes of the oilseed. In particular, Paraguay shipped 56% of the volumes, the USA - 15%, Brazil - 12%, Ukraine - 7%, and Uruguay and Lithuania - 5% each.