MOSCOW, May 25 (Reuters) – Russia will have about the same amount of grain to offer the global market in 2017-18 despite a smaller crop thanks to record stocks, SovEcon agriculture consultancy said.
Russia will start the new 2017-18 season on July 1 with all-time high grain stocks of 20.3 million tonnes, up 64 percent year-on-year, which were inflated by a record crop of 120.7 million tonnes in 2016, SovEcon estimated.
“We are entering the new season with record grain stocks,” Andrey Sizov, the head of SovEcon, a leading agricultural consultancy in Moscow, told a conference on Thursday.
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SovEcon said it had downgraded its forecast for Russia’s 2017-18 grain crop to 106.5 million tonnes from the previously expected 109.5 million tonnes, due to less barley and corn.
However, it raised its forecast for Russia’s 2017-18 grain exports to 36 million tonnes from 34.5 million tonnes it expected in its March forecast and compared with 36.5 million tonnes expected in the current 2016-17 season.
SovEcon also said its forecast for the country’s wheat crop was raised by 500,000 tonnes to 63 million tonnes in 2017 compared with 73.3 million tonnes in 2016.
It also raised its estimate for 2017-18 wheat exports to 27 million tonnes from previously expected 24.5 million tonnes and compared with 27.5 million tonnes in 2016/17.
SovEcon also said it expected 2017 barley crop at 16.7 million tonnes, down from 18 million tonnes, as farmers are unlikely to be able to sow it in time due to wet, cold weather this spring in Russia’s central and Volga regions. Exports of the grain will, however, remain flat at 3.1 million tonnes, the consultancy added.
The corn crop is seen at 15.5 million tonnes with exports of 5 million tonnes in 2017-18. Both will be down 200,000 tonnes from this year’s level.
