Russia’s wheat harvest for 2018 decreased by 16% year-on-year to 72 million tons, according to preliminary estimates of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Interfax news agency reported.
In 2017, Russia had a record wheat harvest of 85.8 million tons, according to the Russian Agriculture Ministry.
Rosstat said Russia’s 2018 rye harvest decreased by almost a quarter to 1.9 million tons, while barley output dropped 17.7% from the previous year to 16.9 million tons. The harvest of oats and corn fell by 13.7% and 15.5% to 4.7 million and 11 million tons, respectively.
Rosstat estimated rice production increased by 5.2% to over 1 million tons, while soybean output increased by 8.4% to 3.9 million tons.
In 2018, Russian companies produced 27.6 million tons of feed, Rosstat estimated. For this purpose, last year the country used 45.3 million tons of grain, primarily wheat and barley, or 33% of overall grain production in 2017, a research conducted by the federal Agricultural Ministry showed.
“We estimated that in 2017 Russia produced from 31 million to 33 million tonnes of feed,” said Valery Afanasiev, president of the Russian Federation of Animal Feed Producers.
“We expect to see the gradual growth in production in the coming years, with CAGR between 3.5% and 4% per year. This will be adding 1.5 million to 2 million tons of additional production quantities to the market per year. By 2025 we will officially manufacture from 38 million to 40 million tons of feed per year,” he said.
