This year in Russia, for the first time, crop forecasts are growing as harvest progresses, rather than declining.
Usually, the maximum forecast for the volume of the harvested crop falls on the beginning of the harvesting campaign, which starts in the south, and as it moves to the center of Russia, the forecasts become lower and lower.
This year, everything is exactly the opposite: the South of Russia initially prepared for large crop losses due to difficult weather conditions, but every day the farmers won more and more volumes, no matter what, and analysts only managed to increase the forecast figures.
So it happened with buckwheat: the initial forecasts were quite low, but every day the picture is changing for the better.
Rush demand for buckwheat this spring has led to an increase in its price not only in retail, but also among producers.
Now the average price of buckwheat on the shelf is 87.1 rubles, which is 1.7 times higher than the price of the previous year.
When the hype on the wave of the pandemic passed, wholesale prices stabilized slightly, but of course they did not return to the level of 2019.
Wholesalers are waiting for information on harvesting a new crop — the price level will depend on this.
According to preliminary data, sown 723 thousand hectares of buckwheat. This is the lowest figure since 2003, when the cultivated area was 735 thousand hectares.
Although it was planned to plant 858 thousand hectares in January 2020, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Agriculture.
But, someone is planning records, and someone is working on the basis of the situation that has developed.
Thus, the Altai Territory was able to increase the area under crops by 10 thousand hectares, which in the end amounted to 473 thousand hectares — more than half of all areas in the country.
Altai is traditionally a key buckwheat producer. But there has been a drought for a long time even in the foothill regions, so a high harvest is not expected.
The appearance of this information immediately raised the cost of cereals: in the first ten days of July, the price of Altai producers increased to 52.9 thousand rubles per ton, against 44.8 thousand rubles per ton at the end of July.
Sellers suspended the sale of the remaining buckwheat stocks in anticipation of price increases.
But the data on the expansion of crops published by Rosstat made it possible to slightly reduce them.
As of August 10, 2020, the price of buckwheat from Altai producers increased from the beginning of 2020 by 31.2% and amounted to 50,250 rubles per ton against 38,293 rubles per ton at the end of June.
But the harvest has not yet been completed, and prices are declining rather slowly, although experts believe it is quite possible that the price will be set at the end of the harvest at 35 thousand rubles per ton.
In any case, the harvest of cereal crops this year will be no worse than last:
oats plan to harvest up to 4.5 million tons (+ 2% by 2019),
millet harvest will grow slightly — by about 5% to 0.46 million tons,
rice — a little over 1 million tons (at the level of the previous two seasons),
buckwheat — plus 6 -7% to 0.83 million tonnes.
Therefore, the price level is expected to be stable. The cost of rice, for example, is already decreasing and is now 10 thousand rubles per tonne lower than last year — it is enough for domestic production, and the export potential is still low.
