Weather conditions in most of European Russia will be satisfactory for grain harvesting, and average for crop development in its Asian part until July 20, weather forecasting service Rosgidromet said on Tuesday. However, in the North Caucasus Federal District, one of the country's important breadbaskets, rains will continue to slow the harvest campaign and damage plants in some parts, it said in a statement.
Drought destroyed about a third of Russia's grain harvest in 2010 and forced the government to ban grain exports from August 15, 2010 to July 2011. This year the country does not expect a repetition of last year's disaster and officially plans to harvest 85 million tonnes of grain, up from 61 million in 2010.
Favourable weather at the end of June and beginning of July has led leading Russian analysts SovEcon to raise its crop forecast to 87-92 million tonnes from a previous 82-86 million tonnes. The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) think tank has raised its crop forecast to 87 million tonnes from 85-86 million.
Rosgidromet said that at the beginning of July, drought and pests damaged plantings in some parts of the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions in the south, as well as in some parts of the Altai, Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions in Siberia. The Agriculture Ministry said in a separate statement on Tuesday farmers had harvested more than 4.6 million tonnes of grain with an average yield of 4.2 tonnes per hectare. Farmers were harvesting winter barley and winter wheat. Last year, farmers had harvested 9.6 million tonnes of grain by July 12 with an average yield of 3.3 tonnes per hectare as the harvesting campaign started earlier than usual due to the drought.
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