Corn has already been planted in Russia on 2.9 million hectares, which is 3% more than planned.
Wheat has been sown on an area of 12.8 million hectares, which is also more than planned.
However, problems can arise with wheat.
According to the forecast of the Institute of Agricultural Market Studies, this year it will hardly be possible to harvest more than 79.6 million tons of wheat (last year’s result — 85.9 million). This means that the yield will be average.
One of the reasons is the unsatisfactory condition of winter crops in many regions of Russia .
In many regions of the Central Federal District (Voronezh, Lipetsk, Tambov), they died by 70%.
In the spring, the already sown fields had to be sown again.
And until now, it is impossible to say for sure what the harvest will be. This largely depends on the amount of precipitation that will fall this summer.
Corn and rapeseed refreshing records
Corn harvest this year may reach its maximum and amount to 15.2 million tons (previous record — 13.9 million).
One of the reasons is precisely the fact that the dead winter crops had to be urgently sown with other crops.
Farmers are also expecting a good rapeseed harvest: up to 2.7 million tonnes, while last season 2.57 million tonnes were harvested.
Sunflower may show an even wider gap: it is planned to harvest up to 16 million tons (compared to 13.3 million, which were harvested a year earlier).
Sunflower is currently sown on an area of 9.5 million hectares, which is a whole million more than in the previous record year (2019).
There is one more reason why producers sow so much sunflower and rapeseed: very high prices for these crops, which are held on the world market, moreover, in a number of countries (China, Egypt), demand for them has increased due to the low own harvest.
Volatile grain prices are forcing farmers to partially abandon wheat in favor of other crops, including barley.
Coupled with the mass death of winter crops, this could be the reason that the wheat harvest in 2021 will be good at best.
