MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia should harvest 97 million tonnes of grains in 2014, up from 92.4 million tonnes a year ago, deputy agriculture minister Andrey Volkov said on Wednesday.
Russian agriculture minister Nikolai Fyodorov had previously seen the 2014 grain crop reaching 100 million tonnes, the largest in six years.
“The minister is aiming for a harvest of 100 million tonnes,” Volkov told a grain conference in Gelendzhik, a town on Russia’s Black Sea coast. “But the condition of the spring grain sowing campaign and the condition of winter grains allow us to expect … this figure (97 million tonnes).”
A high debt burden, a lack of machinery and fertilizers remain the main problems for Russian farmers and their crops, Volkov added.
