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IKAR in Mass Media

Russia spring drought damaged crop in South-analyst

15 мая 2012 года

MOSCOW, May 15 (Reuters) - A spring drought in parts of Russia's southern grain export regions has raised concerns about the condition of the forthcoming crop, although rains could bring relief to some areas in coming days.

"Drought conditions create concern among the producers and market participants across the vast region of Rostov, Stavropol, Volgograd, some parts of Krasnodar and Voronezh," Dmitry Rylko, head of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, told Reuters in an emailed market comment.

"They promise rains in the coming nearest days, but some damage already looks irreparable."

Russia's state forecaster warned on Tuesday of fire hazards after a dry spell in parts of Russia's southern agricultural regions in the coming days, but some areas, including the key growing regions of Krasnodar and Stavropol, would see rain.

"In Krasnodar (we expect) heavy rains, thunderstorms, hail and wind speeds of 15-20 metres per second," the Federal Hydrometeorological Centre said on its website in its forecast for May 15-17.

"In most of the (Southern Federal District) there is a high, and in some places extraordinarily high, risk of fire." Russia's south escaped the worst of a 2010 drought which prompted the government to ban grain exports for nearly a year.

As a result, Russia entered the new agricultural year with overflowing elevators in the south, setting the stage for record exports this year.

IKAR said 25.5 million tonnes of grain, including legumes, had been exported by the middle of May, of which 19.85 million tonnes were wheat and over 1.5 million tonnes were corn, both records for Russia.

But this year, closing stocks are likely to be lower and weather in the south has been far from favourable.

Unusually warm temperatures in December and early January gave way to a fierce cold snap that hit crops in Russia's southern breadbasket, parts of which lacked snow to protect the green shoots.

Russia's first deputy prime minister for agriculture, Viktor Zubkov, visited a beet field in Russia's south over the weekend, and said the government had not changed its view that the total harvest in the coming agricultural year would equal this year's 94 million tonnes.

He said spring sowing was ahead of last year's pace, with 21 million hectares sown to spring grains, but noted a lack of rain had not favoured sugar beet, winter wheat and feed crops.

"For this time of year the state of sugar beet, winter wheat and feed crops is not very good and differs from last year's for the worse. The shoots are stunted," Zubkov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency.

Source: Reuters  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 53

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