Interesting

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 13:25 | Categorized as

15/04/11 -- A report on the official Itar-Tass website quotes First Vice Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov as saying that sales of grain out of the government-owned intervention fund has stopped due to lack of demand.

"The decision was made that the minimum price per tonne would be 6,000 roubles...but the price reached 6,000 roubles and continued to go further down. And there are no bids now," he is quoted as saying.

Six thousand roubles is around GBP130/tonne. Other reports I have read suggest that internal wheat prices are closer to 4,000 roubles/tonne (around GBP87/tonne) as farmers and merchants are unable to take advantage of world prices at much higher levels.

They have sent an open letter to the President imploring him to remove the existing sales embargo, throwing in a little arm-twisting "without that extra revenue we won't be able to afford to buy the seed to plant anything for the 2012 harvest."

Hmmmm, maybe the export ban will be lifted a bit sooner than expected?