September 2, 2010

Black Earth Farming harvest declines more than 50%

Black Earth Farming has reported some crop yields to be down by more than 50% due to Russia's scorching heat, which US officials blamed for lowering the bar further on the country's wheat crop forecasts.

Black Earth, which controls more than 300,000 hectares of Russian farmland, said that its spring wheat yield had fallen by 39% to 1.4 tonnes per hectare, the same as its spring barley result, down 53% on-year. The yield on the spring rapeseed crop plunged by 57% to 0.6 tonnes per hectare, the group said, following the results of the first 128,000 hectares harvested.

"Scorching summer temperatures with excessive heat and ensuing drought conditions, negatively affected winter and spring crops during their final germination period," said Sture Gustavsson, the Black Earth chief executive.

"Drought and heat continues in European Russia, physically destroying the grain crop. Both yields and quality have decreased," USDA's Moscow bureau said, highlighting "drought-burned fields.

The revised figure is below the latest official USDA estimate, updated two weeks ago, of 45 million tonnes. It is also below the UN's 42-43 million-tonne estimate, and the forecast of 44 million tonnes unveiled on Thursday (Sept 2) by the International Grains Council.

The bureau made no mention of prospects for winter sowings, which are also being affected by the dry soil, and which are threatening to extend the country's grain woes well into 2011.

However, separately Russia's agriculture ministry said that plantings of winter-sown grains had reached 484,900 hectares, a little over half seedings completed as of a year ago.

"Therefore a reduced area planted with winter crops will reduce the 2011 crop volumes," the company said.