Interfax: U.S. Department of Agriculture raises Russian grain harvest forecast to 102 mln tonnes

MOSCOW. Dec 1 (Interfax) – the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service raised its forecast for Russia’s grain harvest in the current farm year (July 2014-June 2015) by 1 million tonnes to in November to 102 million tonnes.

It raised its estimate for grain exports by 1.5 million tonnes of 29.5 million tonnes.

The USDA boosted its forecast for Russia’s harvest of wheat by 0.5 million tonnes to 58 million tonnes and of barley by 0.5 million tonnes to 19.5 million tonnes. It left the forecasts for the corn and other grain crop harvests unchanged at 11.5 million tonnes and almost 13 million tonnes.

Cold but dry weather in late October and early November allowed producers in the European portion of Russia to maximize the corn harvest.

The overall grain harvest forecast – 102 million tonnes – is the second highest total in the last 20 years, the USDA said.

The Russian Agriculture Ministry forecasts the harvest at 104 million tonnes this year, up from 92.4 million tonnes last year.

Russia harvested a record 108 million tonnes of grain in 2008.

The USDA forecasts Russian exports to rise by 1 million tonnes to 22 million tonnes for wheat and by 0.3 million tonnes to 4.3 million tonnes for barley. The forecast for the corn harvest is unchanged at 2.5 million tonnes, while export of other grain crops will rise by 0.2 million tonnes to 0.8 million tonnes.

Russia exported 14.7 million tonnes of grain and products from grain in July-October, including 12.14 million tonnes of wheat, 1.83 million tonnes of barley, 0.56 million tonnes of corn and 0.12 million tonnes of other grain crops.

[featured image is file photo]