The country’s growers produced 92.77 million tonnes of winter and spring wheat last year, second only to 2022
REUTERS — Russia’s grain harvest in 2023 will amount to 142.6 million tonnes in net weight, down 9.5 percent from the record harvest of 2022 but still its second largest, according to state statistics published Dec. 25.
The harvest of winter and spring wheat totalled 92.77 million tonnes, down from 104.23 million tonnes in 2022, according to data from the federal statistics service.
The total crop for 2022 amounted to 157.61 million tonnes.
“We will have the second largest grain harvest in the entire history of the country,” Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
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“This will allow to not only provide the domestic market with a stock, but also to send significant volumes of grain to foreign partners.”
Patrushev said Russian grain exports in 2023 were hindered by a lack of vessels, plus problems with insurance and payments caused by Western sanctions.
China is the world’s biggest wheat producer but Russia is usually the top exporter of wheat. Russian total agricultural exports totalled more than $45 billion in 2023, which was a record, Patrushev said.
“In the first half of the current season, we expect exports of about 35 million tonnes of grain, and in the second at least another 30 million tonnes, so that about 65 million tonnes will leave the market,” he said.
Patrushev, the son of Nikolai Patrushev, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Russia expected a harvest of around 1.6 million tonnes of durum wheat. Russia has imposed an export ban on durum until the end of May.
“Next year, we set the task to further expand the acreage and increase the production of this crop to two million tonnes, both to saturate the domestic market and to form a good export potential for this crop,” Patrushev said.
Russia’s soy production covered domestic consumption and will rise to seven or eight million tonnes in coming years, allowing exports, he added.
The potato harvest rose to 8.6 million tonnes, the biggest in 30 years, Patrushev said.
“The gross harvest of sugar beet amounted to 52.2 million tonnes. Accordingly, we will receive about seven million tonnes of sugar this agricultural year.”
