MOSCOW, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Russian agriculture consultancy Sovecon said on Tuesday it has cut its forecast for Russia’s 2021 wheat crop to 75.4 million tonnes from 76.2 million tonnes because of low spring wheat yields.
Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, supplying it mainly to Africa and the Middle East. It has been hit by dry weather in several regions this year.
The Urals and the Volga regions of the country suffered badly due to a very dry and hot summer, Sovecon said in a note, adding that the Urals may harvest the lowest crop since 2012 and the Volga since 2014.
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Both regions received 50-80 percent of normal precipitation in the last three months while temperatures were 3-5 Celsius above average, it added.
Sovecon said last week that it expects Russia’s 2021/22 wheat exports to decline to the lowest level in five seasons due to the smaller crop, slow pace of exports and tough competition with other suppliers such as Ukraine.
“With three quarters of Russia’s wheat area harvested, the Siberian crop is the only big unknown variable at this stage,” Andrey Sizov at Sovecon said in the note.
Siberia is expected to harvest a good crop as favourable summer weather offset earlier dry weather there, he added.
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