MOSCOW, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Russia, one of the world’s key wheat exporters, plans to harvest as much wheat in 2014 as it did this year, despite a decrease in the area sown to winter grains, Agriculture Minister Nikolay Fyodorov told reporters on Wednesday.
Russia, has enjoyed a better harvest this year after last year’s drought, but the winter sowing campaign was delayed by rains in September. Abnormally warm weather in October and November has allowed planting to continue.
“We are optimists … We plan for farmers to harvest at least 90 million tonnes of grains, including 50 million tonnes of wheat,” Fyodorov said after addressing lawmakers in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
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Russia will sow about 14.7-14.8 million hectares with winter grains this year, below the 16.4 million hectares originally planned, he added. The optimal deadline for completing winter grains sowing in Russia is mid-October.
Winter grains for the 2014 crop were sown on 14.4 million hectares, or 87.7 percent of the planned area, as of Nov. 12, compared with 15.7 million hectares a year earlier.
To compensate for the decline in area sown to winter grains, Russia will expand spring grains by 2 million or 3 million hectares, mainly maize (corn), the minister added.
Regions which harvest mainly winter wheat are unlikely to be interested in substituting it with spring wheat, as the latter gives significantly lower yields, farmers and traders said in October.
Fyodorov kept the estimate of the 2013/14 grain exportable surplus at 20 million tonnes, of which 12 million tonnes had already been shipped between the start of the season on July 1 and the end of October.
The country has already harvested 92.8 million tonnes of grains by bunker weight from 93.6 percent of sown area, including 53.8 million tonnes of wheat. After drying and cleaning the final figures will be about 5 percent smaller.
