At present, the sowing of this crop in Russia is ahead of schedule. In this case, the total area of crops can be slightly increased.
The main factor that is on the side of farmers so far is the weather.
In some places it was necessary to delay or interrupt sowing for 3-4 days due to rains, but basically we see that the weather is most conducive to the beet growing season.
Many regions have almost finished sowing.
For example, the Urals and the south of Russia are ahead of schedule, with a slight delay — the central black earth regions.
“A little behind due to cold / rainy weather in late April — early May, only a number of regions of the central Chernozem region — Voronezh, Lipetsk, Kursk — as well as Altai,» said Evgeny Ivanov, a leading expert at the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies.
As a result, as of May 23, about 1.03 million hectares of beets have already been sown. A year ago, on the same date, there were about 1 million hectares.
In principle, the total area under sugar beet last year was the same.
But this time, you can count on the fact that it will grow a little. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture is waiting for 1.03 million hectares, and this plan has already been fulfilled, while the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies has an even higher forecast: 1.06 million tons.
Some companies are increasing the production of sugar beets.
For example, one of the largest enterprises, the Steppe agricultural holding, added 10% to the area under sugar beets, which allows us to count on an increase in the harvest this season.
In total, this year it is planned to harvest no less than the volume of the previous year — 42 million tons of beets, from which it is planned to produce 6-6.5 million tons of sugar.
Do farmers have problems?
In general, as Ivanov noted, the farmers managed to solve all the difficulties that could arise with logistics, fertilizers, as well as spare parts and seeds.
However, as regards the same seeds, Tkachev’s agro-complex, for example, this time used up to 95% of imported material.
On the one hand, this is good — it turns out, despite all the sanctions, foreign seeds remain available to Russian farmers. But on the other hand, it is time to reduce the share of dependence of domestic agricultural producers on imported seed material, and in the coming years, most likely, this issue will have to be somehow resolved.
But in general, we can say that the farmers successfully coped with the spring sowing of sugar beets.
The main thing now is that the weather remains favorable in the summer, in this case it will be possible to expect that the harvest in the current season will be good.
