Russia's grain harvest preliminarily totals 128 mln tonnes in 2024; final figure should be 130 mln tonnes - Agriculture Minister Lut

MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax) - Preliminary data indicate that Russia's grain harvest totaled 128 million tonnes in 2024, and the final figure should be 130 million tonnes, Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said at the All-Russia Agronomic Conference on Wednesday.

"We have 128 million tonnes according to statistics to date. We will receive the final data from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) in March. Accordingly, we expect there to be 130 million tonnes, as we planned at the beginning of the season. Our forecast has not changed much," Lut said.

Last year's harvest is the fifth best result in the country's history, she said.

The past season was one of the toughest, she said. "I remember it well. I really didn't want something like this to happen again. But this is [a matter of] the weather and nature. There's nothing you can do about it," she said.

The oilseed harvest totaled 30 million tonnes in 2024, she said. "There are two records here. More than 7 million tonnes of soybeans. We really hope that this year we will see an increase, if the weather permits, because technology allows us to do this," she said. "Six years ago, when we started the soybean program, the goal was to provide ourselves with soybeans for livestock farming. So 7 million tonnes fully meets the needs of our livestock sector," she said.

Russia no longer needs to import GMO soybeans. "We've suspended it, and we'll see how it affects the market," she said. "But nevertheless, we believe that we can increase production, especially in Far Eastern regions, in order to maintain our trade relations with China for non-GMO soybean exports."

The second record in the oilseeds market was the harvest of 4.7 million tonnes of rapeseed. However, "there was a complication - Europe, which consumed rapeseed oil, closed itself off [from Russian products]," Lut said. "Nevertheless, there are still markets," she said.

In addition, 1.2 million tonnes of rice were harvested last year. "The accident at the Fedorovsky hydroelectric plant [in Krasnodar Territory in April 2022] hurt us in terms of production volumes. But in 2024, we reached production levels even higher than before the accident, although we still haven't restored the plant itself," Lut said. "Therefore, we really hope to harvest 1.5 million tonnes soon. This will allow us to open up exports, which are currently closed because we lack rice on the domestic market, which is our priority."

Almost all crops harvested fully meet the country's domestic needs, and there is also good potential for exports, she said.