Agriculture Ministry still expects Russia to harvest 135 mln t of grain in 2025 - Lut

CHITA. July 22 (Interfax) - Russia's Agriculture Ministry is maintaining its grain harvest forecast of 135 million tonnes for this year, despite drought in a number of major grain producing regions.

Planting "in general went off without any serious disruptions," but "there are, of course, weather difficulties - we're having a major drought in some regions, in some regions we're having downpours, we can't start harvesting," Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said at a meeting that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin held in Chita on Tuesday.

But, "nonetheless, at this point we're maintaining our forecast - 135 million tonnes of grain in total and 88 million-90 million tonnes of wheat," Lut said.

She said a "fairly decent foundation" has been laid for the new harvest. "We're confirming about 46 million hectares for the area planted with grain crops," Lut said.

This was in large part facilitated by the "fairly wide range of support for the sector," she said. This includes 10 billion rubles to support grain farming, including 1.3 million tonnes for the Far East.

"All the money has already been conveyed to farmers. Per-hectare support in the amount of 780 million rubles has been maintained for regions in Siberia and the Far East," Lut said, recalling that this support measure has been cancelled for other regions.

She also highlighted the importance of subsidized credit for the sector, which she said is a key support measure. Lut said "18.6 million rubles was allocated for seasonal field work, and our pace of disbursal is faster than last year."

Speaking about support for Russian seed selection, she said 24 billion rubles was allocated last year for elite seed breeding and purchase of seeds developed under the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Agribusiness Sector.

"And such measures made it possible to increase the overall share of domestic seeds last year. For example, for grains the share of seeds from domestic selection increased by almost 6 percentage points to 77.5%," Lut said.