August 20, 2010
Lithuania not looking at grain imports
The country will not need to import grain even if this year's harvest is worse than last year's, said Agriculture Minister Kazys Starkevicius.
"I'm sure we'll have sufficient grain, because last year we had a record harvest of 3.8 million tonnes and exported 1.7 million tonnes," he said at a news conference.
"So, even if this year's grain harvest is smaller, we'll still have enough grain not only to meet own needs, but also for exports."
The minister said that Lithuania is the world's largest per-capita exporter of grain.
The Lithuanian Grain Producers' Association has warned that this year's crops could be down by up to 30% because grains are smaller in size due to the heat. As smaller grains are of lower quality, the country will have higher volumes of feed grain, but may experience a shortage of food grain, it said.
