August 2, 2010

Russia to start selling grain from intervention fund

Russia's Agriculture Ministry will soon start selling grain from its intervention fund to the regions affected most by the ongoing drought, according to the head of the ministry's crop production and plant protection department.

"In the near future, we will start selling grain from the intervention fund to the regions which suffered from the drought," Pyotr Chekmaryov told a regional government meeting.

The intervention fund did not hold as much grain as the government wanted, he added.

"We do not have that much feed grain (just 3.5 million tonnes). The intervention fund holds a total of 9.5 million tonnes. There is a total of 21 million tonnes on the market," he said.