Russia’s IKAR agricultural consultancy has cut its forecasts for Russia’s wheat harvest and exports after unusually hot spring weather combined with bitter frosts in the heart of Russia’s bread basket.
IKAR lowered its Russian wheat crop forecast to 83.5 million metric tons from 86 million tons and cut the projection for Russian wheat exports to 45 million tons from 47 million tons.
“This is predominantly a combination of recent frosts and dry weather across the European Russia,” said Dmitry Rylko, general director of IKAR. He also mentioned that difficult sowing conditions in Western Siberia due to heavy rains could be a contributing factor, though it is still a minor and contradictory issue.
China is the world’s biggest wheat producer, but Russia is usually the top exporter. The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), one of the two leading agricultural consultancies in Russia, also cut the overall grain crop forecast for the country to 132 million tons from 135 million tons and its total grain exports outlook to 57 million tons from 59.5 million tons.
Russia’s new agriculture minister, Oksana Lut, said last week that 900,000 hectares of frost-hit crops would need to be replanted, further highlighting the challenges faced by the country’s agricultural sector due to the severe weather conditions.
The revised forecasts by IKAR reflect the significant impact that the combination of hot spring weather and bitter frosts has had on Russia’s wheat production and export potential, underscoring the volatility and uncertainty faced by the global wheat market.