Russian Harvest Deja Vu
Russia has harvested 88.8 MMT of grains to date this season off 36.8 million hectares, or just 80% of planted area, data released today shows. The wheat harvest to date amounts to some 55.9 MMT and the barley harvest 17.9 MMT.
They have therefore already exceeded the official production estimate from the Agriculture Ministry of a national grain crop of 85 MMT for 2009, with some way to go.
This poses the question exactly how much of the 20% of the remaining planted area will actually be harvested? There were reports back in the summer of some crops in the Volga region being "completely lost" to drought, but it's hard to imagine it being anything like these kind of numbers.
That's the second year in a row that the Ag Ministry appear to have deliberately issued ludicrously low production estimates. Output in 2008 you may recall finally came in at 108.1 MMT when they'd been forecasting only 85 MMT across most of the summer.
They have therefore already exceeded the official production estimate from the Agriculture Ministry of a national grain crop of 85 MMT for 2009, with some way to go.
This poses the question exactly how much of the 20% of the remaining planted area will actually be harvested? There were reports back in the summer of some crops in the Volga region being "completely lost" to drought, but it's hard to imagine it being anything like these kind of numbers.
That's the second year in a row that the Ag Ministry appear to have deliberately issued ludicrously low production estimates. Output in 2008 you may recall finally came in at 108.1 MMT when they'd been forecasting only 85 MMT across most of the summer.
