Russia's grain production may surpass industry's estimate

An industry's estimate that Russian grain crop will exceed 90 million tonnes this year may prove conservative, judging by the growth in winter plantings.

 

Russia, which on latest Washington data has overtaken the US to become the third-biggest wheat producer, could well match last year's 97 million-tonne harvest, analyst Andrey Sizov said.

 

The crop could even do better, he said.

 

His assessment followed a rise more than 18 million hectares in winter grain plantings, which have historically proved more variable than spring plantings.

 

The spring crop area remains relatively stable, Sizov said, noting the inability of many areas, such as Siberia and the Urals, to plant meaningful amounts of winter grain because of the risk of winterkill.

 

The main reason to question an upbeat prediction was that Russia appeared overdue for a season plagued by weather setbacks. Typically Russia has had pretty bad crop years every five years, Sizov said.

 

The crop in 1998 was pretty bad, and there were problems in 2003 but that was the last difficult year Russia had, he said. It is estimated that 16.5-17 million hectares of autumn-sown grain will make it into the spring, compared with 16.7 million hectares, post-winterkill, a year ago.

 

 

Zlochevskiy's figure was based on an estimate of sowings of a little under 48 million hectares, comprising 18 million hectares of winter plantings and a possible reduction in the spring grain area.

 

The USDA earlier this month raised its estimate of Russia's wheat output last year by 2.2 million tonnes to 61.7 million tonnes, overtaking America, which produced 60.3 million tonnes.