Russia reports grain harvest of 142.6 million tonnes, second largest ever

MOSCOW: Russia’s grain harvest in 2023 will amount to 142.6 million metric tonnes in net weight, down 9.5% from the record harvest of 2022 but still its second largest, according to state statistics published on Monday.

The harvest of winter and spring wheat totalled 92.77 million tonnes in net weight, down from 104.23 million tonnes in 2022, according to data from the federal statistics service.

The total crop for 2022 amounted to 157.61 million tonnes.

“We will have the second largest grain harvest in the entire history of the country,” Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

“This will allow to not only to provide the domestic market with a stock, but also to send significant volumes of grain to foreign partners.”

Patrushev said that Russian grain exports in 2023 had been hindered by a lack of vessels, plus problems with insurance and payments caused by Western sanction.

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China is the world’s biggest wheat producer but Russia is usually the top exporter of wheat. Russian total agricultural exports totalled more than $45 billion in 2023, a record, Patrushev said.

“In the first half of the current season, we expect exports of about 35 million tonnes of grain, and in the second at least another 30 million tonnes, so that about 65 million tonnes will leave the market,” he said.

Patrushev, the son of Nikolai Patrushev, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin, said that Russia expected a harvest of around 1.6 million tonnes of durum wheat. Russia has imposed a ban on exporting durum wheat until the end of May.

“Next year, we set the task to further expand the acreage and increase the production of this crop to 2 million tonnes both to saturate the domestic market and to form a good export potential for this crop,” Patrushev said.

He said Russia’s soy production covered domestic consumption and that it would rise to around 7-8 million tonnes over coming years, allowing exports. The potato harvest rose to 8.6 million tonnes, the biggest in 30 years, Patrushev said.

“The gross harvest of sugar beet amounted to 52.2 million tonnes. Accordingly, we will receive about 7 million tonnes of sugar this agricultural year.”