According to the latest data, the level of grain exports from the Russian Federation in 2023 was 69 million tons, and in 2024 — 71 million tons.
Despite the decline in the harvest in 2024, the export of major agricultural crops, mainly grain, remained at a high level and even increased.
For example, the volume of wheat exports increased from 53 million tons to 57 million tons. However, barley exports remained at the same level of 7 million tons, and corn even decreased from 8 million tons to 6 million tons.
It was possible to increase the volume of wheat exports mainly due to the fact that good harvests were collected in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, as well as due to the presence of export surpluses in the Volga region and the central region of Russia.
As for corn, the negative dynamics here are largely due to such an unfavorable weather phenomenon as drought, which occurred in the current season in many regions that are the main ones in terms of production of this agricultural crop.
In general, as for the grain harvest, in 2023 it was 145 million tons excluding new regions, and in 2024 — 125 million tons, which is a very significant drop.
In particular, wheat production fell by 11%, barley — by 21%, corn — by 20%.
Taking this into account, maintaining and even some growth in export volumes can be considered a significant achievement, experts believe.
At the same time, further increase in exports may be under threat, experts warn.
First of all, this may be hampered by the reduction of the export quota, which the government plans to implement from February 15. The previous quota was 29 million tons, and the new one is only 11.6 million, that is, we are talking about more than a twofold reduction.
Such a measure will be in effect until the end of the season and can significantly reduce export volumes.
In the current situation, exporters can be helped by the restoration of prices for agricultural export products. There is reason to expect that already at the beginning of the new year, the cost of grain on the world market will increase, which can increase the profits extracted by exporters.
At the same time, analysts note that it was the reduction in prices that became the main challenge for Russian agricultural producers last season.
Despite all the difficulties, exporters have also had significant achievements.
For example, there is an active growth in grain supplies to those countries that were not among the buyers in the recent past. For example, these are Algeria and Saudi Arabia.
Exports to Nigeria, Morocco and Indonesia have also resumed.
Against this background, significant volumes of exports remain to countries such as Brazil and Mexico, as well as Bangladesh, Kenya and Tunisia.
