Considering the latest «news from the fields», the Sovekon analytical center has raised its forecast for the harvest in 2021. According to it, farmers will be able to harvest up to 79.3 million tons of wheat.
The previous forecast given earlier was 76.2 million tons. He was more pessimistic, as analysts feared that up to 16% of winter wheat would die due to the autumn drought.
Currently, there is reason to expect that no more than 10% of it will die. First of all, this is due to the warm winter in the south.
Since the temperature did not drop too low, the death of crops due to frost is likely to be avoided.
But in Central Russia and the Volga region, the situation is worse: the fields stand under the ice crust for too long, and this can negatively affect germination.
However, so far all this has been written with a pitchfork on the water. It will be possible to talk about something concrete not earlier than mid-April, when it will be possible to visually assess how many percent of winter crops have grown and how many have not.
Will Russia retain its leadership in grain exports?
In general, farmers do not expect to surpass last year’s harvest indicators.
As the head of the analytical center of the Rusagrotrans company Igor Pavensky noted, at best this season it will be possible to grow 120-125 million tons of grain (133 million tons were harvested in the 2020 season).
Wheat last year harvested up to 86 million tons, with the lion’s share — winter crops (60 million tons). In 2021, according to Pavensky, the harvest is unlikely to exceed 75 million tons of wheat.
However, this will not prevent Russia from remaining the leader in grain exports, the expert said.
For example, in 2017, when a record harvest was harvested in Russia, exports were not record high, since the transport infrastructure, as well as elevators, were not ready for this.
In the first half of the 2020/21 agricultural year (1 July 1 to December 31), on the contrary, it was possible to set a record for the export of grain abroad: more than 30 million tons were sent.
This year, Pavensky is sure, Russia will be able to export at least 45 million tons of grain, so its leadership in wheat will still be preserved.
True, active export is more and more hampered by the imposed duties and quotas, and how producers will solve this issue is not yet very clear.
As for the possible death of winter crops, those fields on which they will not sprout are likely to quickly «overseed» with sugar beets and sunflowers. After all, export prices for sugar and butter are steadily growing — which means that you can make good money on this.
