The intervention fund was created in order to support farmers through direct purchase of grain from them, as well as regulate prices.
The fund continues to work actively. For example, from December 11 to March 7, about 845 thousand tons of grain were purchased.
At the same time, the government plans to allocate another 7 billion rubles to the fund in the near future to expand its capabilities.
In particular, plans are being considered to purchase not only grain, but also milk powder and butter, and in addition, sugar.
What are the pros and cons of this fund?
One of the advantages is increased market liquidity, and in addition, the fund allows farmers to quickly sell their products.
Also, the high reserves of the fund will allow, if something happens, to offset the rise in domestic grain prices, this is a big plus for the flour-grinding and baking industries.
At the same time, the work of the fund also creates certain risks.
For example, it is now planned to increase the volume of grain purchased by the fund to 5 million tons, but this presupposes the need to use large elevator capacities to store it.
And this could lead to a shortage of elevators in certain regions and stall the work of the entire grain system, warns Dmitry Rylko, general director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR).
In addition, as experts note, if the government wants to help the market, then the intervention fund is not the only or even the main tool that can be used for this.
Also, preferential loans, especially for the construction of new elevators, and the abolition of export duties would greatly help farmers.
At the same time, Russian farmers have big plans for the new season. It is possible that this year the grain harvest in Russia will amount to 143 million tons, of which 93 million tons will be wheat.
“At the moment, our moderate forecast points to 93 million tons of wheat.
The total harvest volume is 147 million tons, which corresponds to the expected wheat harvest.
Perhaps the numbers will be even higher, since at the moment there are no negative signs in any region of Russia,” says Rylko.
This allows farmers to expect that the harvest will again be close to the 2022 record, especially taking into account new regions.
But this also creates possible problems: the lack of capacity for grain storage in the event of a large harvest can manifest itself very clearly, so this problem may need to be urgently solved now.
