The conference call was joined by top agriculture officials of the Oryol, Tambov, Kursk regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria and the Republic of Dagestan.
Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Fyodorov said that spring field work has been completed on schedule, and farmers have met their commitments with respect to the structure of the sowing areas. Mr Fyodorov read out the initial harvest figures, which he called optimistic: with a grain crop yield of 32.3 centners per hectare (25.4 centners per hectare in 2012) on an area of 5.8 million hectares (12.8% of the forecast), 18.8 million tonnes of grain have been milled (8.2 million tonnes over the level of 2012).
Meanwhile Nikolai Fyodorov said that in June and in the first ten days of July, unusually hot weather persisted in large parts of European Russia. There are droughts in the Lipetsk, Voronezh, Ulyanovsk, Orenburg, Samara, Kurgan regions, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, in some districts of the Chelyabinsk, Rostov, Volgograd regions, in the Republic of Kalmykia and southern part of the Republic of Tatarstan. In all, 7.7 million hectares of land are affected by drought, and according to preliminary data the area of crop failure totals 1.9 million hectares or 2.6% of the total sowing area.
In regions with unusually high temperatures, the relevant agencies are daily monitoring the condition of crops, assessing crop losses and calculating preliminary damages from crop failure.
Source: Ministry of Agriculture
