Agriculture Ministry not ruling out grain purchase interventions in 2018
NOVOSIBIRSK. April 19 (Interfax) - The Russian Agriculture Ministry does not rule out grain purchase interventions in 2018, Deputy Agriculture Minister Dmitry Fedyushin said at a meeting in Novosibirsk on Thursday.
"The Russian Agriculture Ministry is not ruling out the use of state interventions," he said, adding that the decision would be made depending on the grain market situation.
The intervention fund currently has 4 million tonnes of grain in storage, 44% of it at elevators in the Siberian Federal District.
Plans are to export about 500,000 tonnes of grain from the intervention fund "closer to June," with Siberia providing the bulk of that amount.
"Pinpoint interventions in Siberian regions are a possibility," Fedyushin said. "We will conduct pinpoint purchase interventions in the Siberian FD entities," he said.
As reported, the Agriculture Ministry has agreed with the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) the minimum price of grain from the 2018 harvest for conducting state purchase interventions in 2018-2019.
If the decision is made to conduct purchase interventions in the new agricultural year (July 2018-June 2019), the Agriculture Ministry proposes setting the price of Class 1 wheat at 10,900 rubles/tonne including VAT (compared with 12,500 rubles/t in the current farm year) and 9,900 rubles/t for Class 2 wheat (11,500 rubles/t).
The proposed price is 8,900 rubles/t for Class 3 wheat (10,300 rubles/t), 7,600 rubles/t for Class 4 wheat (9,000 rubles/t) and 6,400 rubles/t for Class 5 wheat (7,600 rubles/t).
The proposed minimum price for rye is 5,900 rubles/t (7,400 rubles/t), for barley - 6,500 rubles/t (7,600 rubles/t) and corn - 7,100 rubles/t (7,900 rubles/t).
The Agriculture Ministry has not conducted grain purchase interventions in the current agricultural year, believing that subsidized transport of grain from regions located far from export ports is a more effective mechanism for supporting prices.