How much was the crop damaged and what will happen to food prices
Photo: María LENZ.
It’s a strange spring here today. Especially in the central part of Russia. At the end of April it was already hot, and at the end of the May holidays it suddenly snowed, hail and frost, in some places up to -10-11 degrees.
The weather ruined not only plans for the barbecue, but also plans for the future harvest. Due to the frost in Russia, the price of wheat on the Chicago Stock Exchange increased: exchange participants suggested that the volume of our exports (and therefore the supply of this very important product on the world market) could drastically decrease .
And finally the good weather settled across the country. This means that we can summarize: how serious the problems with the harvest really are and how they can threaten us, ordinary Russian citizens.
WHAT WAS DAMAGED AND WHERE
Frosts in early May are not so uncommon in central Russia. But this year they were preceded by very hot weather, in some regions, heat that bordered on drought. Farmers planted seeds earlier than usual and, just in time for the frost, the gardens managed to bloom.
As of May 21, a state of emergency was declared in 10 regions due to a threat to the harvest. These are mainly the Central Black Earth Region and part of the Volga region: Tambov, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Oryol, Rostov, Penza regions, many Volgograd, Saratov, Belgorod, Kursk regions.
Mainly cereal crops, rapeseed, sunflower, sugar beet and corn were affected. And also gardens.
The state of emergency means it will be easier for farmers to declare their losses and receive some form of help, including compensation from insurance companies if the crop was insured. In these regions, affected crops will most likely have time to be replanted. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there is a supply of seeds and other elements necessary for this.
But the harvest was partially lost in regions where no emergency was declared.
– Our berry fields and orchards suffered. It is still difficult to determine how strong it is. These are, in particular, raspberries, strawberries, currants and blueberries. Frost occurred during the flowering period,” Babken Ispiryan, president of the Association of Peasant Farms and Agricultural Cooperatives of the Kaluga region, told KP. – Rapeseed too. It has also started to flower. Most likely we will not replant, since the plants have not completely died. But, obviously, returns will be affected. To what extent is still unclear.
The good thing is that most of the Krasnodar Territory, our main breadbasket in the European part of the country, was not damaged.
– A cold snap was recorded in the Krasnodar Territory at the beginning of May, but the cold did not last long and there was no snow on our fields. Therefore, the low temperatures did not affect future harvests. Our sunflowers, beets and corn are already growing. The cultures are very good. Uneven sprouts appeared in the soybean fields (ed.), but we do not attribute this to the cold, but to the lack of moisture,” said Dmitry Dubovikov, director of the agricultural holding JSC Rassvet (Progress Agro Group of Companies). .
WHAT ARE THE HARVEST OPPORTUNITIES NOW?
The latest official data indicate that the frost destroyed crops on a total area of 830 thousand hectares. These figures were given by the new head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Oksana Lut. In fact, this is not much: about 1% of the entire estimated cultivated area (84.5 million hectares). Here you must understand that our country is huge. And while in one part they are already complaining about frozen rapeseed, in another, in mid-May, they simply take the tractors out to the field.
Experts at the SovEkon analytical center, however, suggest that the damage is greater: up to one million hectares will need to be replanted. Also, a drop in yield is possible, when the plants did not die, but were still frozen.
The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) lowered its forecast for the future cereal harvest from 142 to 135 million tons. And the forecast for wheat exports is an initial 50.5 to 45 million tons.
The Ministry of Agriculture still expects a harvest of 132 million tons of grain (the department, interestingly, initially had a more pessimistic forecast than analysts), but adjustments are possible. In comparison, last year we harvested around 150 million tonnes of grain and the year before that even more. But here it is worth considering that until the last two years, with phenomenal harvests, 132 million tons of cereals were considered a record.
Experts have even increased their forecasts for the harvest of oilseeds, mainly sunflower. In some regions, it was with them that farmers hastily replanted fields with dead winter wheat (oilseeds are considered more profitable crops). In this sense, the production and export of sunflower oil can increase.
It is more difficult with fruits and berries such as currants and raspberries. Unlike cereals and legumes, they cannot be replanted. If something is frozen, now until the next harvest. Damage data is also difficult in this case. It will be possible to evaluate it accurately when the fruits appear. Or they won’t appear. According to very preliminary and approximate estimates by sector experts, we can talk about the loss of up to a third of the fruit harvest. Once again, we are not talking about the fact that “everything is lost, this year there will be no domestic apples and cherries.”
– In some regions the harvest of cherries, cherries, pears and apples will be lost. But if you look at the national scale, this is not the entire harvest. In the southernmost regions of the country we also grow fruit. In the south of the Krasnodar Territory, in Dagestan, for example, there are beautiful state-of-the-art apple orchards,” explains Anatoly Tikhonov, director of the Center for International Agribusiness and Food Security at the Russian Academy of National Economy (RANEPA).
WHAT THIS MEAN TO US
Let’s start with cereals.
– Even if we collect not 132 million tons, but 128 million, or even 120 million, we will still have a huge surplus compared to the country’s domestic grain needs. This is about 80 million tons, taking into account all needs, both for food and fodder, says Tikhonov. “At the same time, many farmers still have surpluses from last year’s harvest and cannot sell them. Therefore, the situation can turn into serious problems only for individual farms in the affected regions. Unfortunately, a significant portion of some grain-producing farms have accumulated losses due to high harvests in previous years and low grain prices. And now the frost has hit them. For the country as a whole we can only speak of a slight reduction in exports, compared to the record figures that were initially expected.
But again, according to the expert, between 3 and 5 million tons of wheat, which we apparently will not deliver to other countries this year, is not a volume that could cause a sharp increase in food prices in the world or anywhere else. country. misfortunes. Although it has already caused stock market speculation about “bad news.”
– As for fruits, until recently we imported most of the same apples. Therefore, consumers are unlikely to notice changes on store shelves,” says Anatoly Tikhonov. – The losses of our own harvest are quite successfully compensated by Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Latin American countries, etc., fortunately they remain “friends”. The main victims of this story are the owners of domestic gardens affected by frost.
ASK FROM THE EDGE
Will frost cause an increase in food prices?
They’re already scaring us with this. The number one horror story is that due to the reduction in the harvest of cereals and legumes, feed for farm animals will become more expensive. And therefore, throughout the chain, meat and dairy. And they also say that we have to wait for the price of juices to rise, which are mainly used for domestic fruits and not for imported ones.
– Let’s figure it out. In fact, a very important part of the cost of feed production is cereals,” Anatoly Tikhonov comments on the situation. – But what kind of grain? Forage. If for some reason the cereal loses quality, it automatically goes into the “forage” category. I do not believe that under current conditions we are facing a shortage of fodder. Especially taking into account unsold stocks from previous years (due to prolonged storage, often in suboptimal conditions, grain loses quality and can only be sent to feed livestock. – Ed.). In general, compared to other factors (for example, rising fuel and lubricant prices), the impact of frost on the cost of food production is very insignificant. Although, of course, in the wake of the uproar over the “harvest is lost” issue, there may be people who want to speculate. Now about the juices. I do not believe that even here a significant increase in prices is possible, due to the limit of purchasing power. In our country, a liter of juice already costs more than 100 rubles, much more expensive, especially for families with children.
