August 22, 2012

Russia's grain output down 27.5% as of August 20

Russian grain yields have fallen 27.5% from last year to 1.98 tonnes per hectare as a drought which has raised fears of a curb on grain exports hits the country.

As of Monday (Aug 20), Russia had completed 54% of the harvest, 47.7 million tonnes of grains, down from 54.4 million tonnes, by the same date last year, the data published on the ministry's website showed. It did not provide wheat harvest data.

The Volga region harvested 11.6 million tonnes of grains by August 20 with yields down to 1.37 tonnes per hectare from 65.7% of its area.

The ministry gave no separate figures for other regions such as the drought-stricken Urals and Siberia which on Monday (Aug 20) prompted two leading Russian agricultural analysts to cut their forecasts for Russia's total grain harvest.

SovEcon analysts narrowed their Russia's 2012 grain harvest estimate to 71-72.5 million tonnes, while the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) cut its forecast to 73 million tonnes.

The Agriculture Ministry's official grain harvest forecast still stands at 75-80 million tonnes, down from last year's 94 million tonnes, a ministry spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday (Aug 21).

The country also continued the sowing of winter grains, the data showed, with 2.2% of the area complete. Russia plans to sow 16.8 million hectares with winter grains for its 2013 crop, up from last year's 16.1 million hectares.