FSU Harvesting And Get The Beer In Kiev

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 11:13 | Categorized as

06/07/11 -- Harvesting in the FSU is behind last season's drought-hurried pace, hampered by recent heavy rains, although yields are well up on year ago levels.

Some reports are suggesting that there may be some crop losses associated with these rains, whilst others suggest that these will be compensated for by providing a boost for spring sown grains - which in the case of Russia accounts for around two thirds of total grain area this year.

Reports coming out of there suggest that around 1 MMT mostly winter barley has been cut so far with yields up 31% on 2010.

In Ukraine 1.8 MMT of grains have been harvested so far, with yields up 14% on last year.

Having supposedly shipped out a million tonnes of grain on day one of the export embargo being lifted it seems inconceivable to me that Russia will only export 15 MMT of grains in the whole of 2011/12 as some estimates suggest. Or did that 1 MMT include 950,000 MT that had already been shipped and was just waiting for a customs stamp?

It would be nice to have some first hand reliable information to go on rather than the total tosh that some of the popular news services carry wouldn't it? So I've decided to fly out there next week and brush shoulders with some of the big knobs. Big cheeses, whatever you want to call them. Big knob cheeses if you like. And get some first hand knowledge of what is really going on over there.

You better stock up with some extra beer Kiev, Nogger is coming...