Decision to halt grain market interventions could be reached any day - minister
MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - The state could reach a decision to end grain market procurement interventions in the coming days, but the issue is not yet on the agenda, Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov said.
"There is no such decision yet. One could be reached literally this evening or tomorrow morning, but I don't currently see that we are putting this issue to round off grain interventions on the agenda in this regime," he told reporters.
The decision would likely be a technicality.
"If we see there is no risk that farmers will lose the ability to earn money on the harvest, they may be ended. Or, if prices need to be supported on behalf of grain producers, we will support them. It is technical in nature, a working issue that will be decided on a routine, day-to-day basis," Fyodorov said.
The interventions will not end until a minimum level of profitability for grain producers is assured. Asked whether that level of profitability existed currently, Fyodorov said" There is. The current level is acceptable and the purchase interventions, in our estimation, in the estimation of experts, in general produced the results we were counting on."
The purchase interventions (that is, purchases for the state intervention fund) began on October 15, 2013 and focused on Siberia, where grain prices fell steeply owing to the good harvest.
A total of 599,940 tonnes of grain from the 2013 harvest was purchased at a total cost of 3.5 billion rubles. The fund purchased almost 306,900 tonnes of Class 3 food wheat for 1.9 billion rubles and 112,300 tonnes of Class 4 wheat for 675.5 million rubles, 46,800 tonnes of Class 5 wheat for 266.6 million rubles and 134,200 tonnes of feed barley for 670.4 million rubles.
The volume of the interventions has fallen sharply in recent weeks. In the most recent trading, on Wednesday, the state purchased just 270 tonnes of barley out of the 30,000 tonnes on offer.
Russia instituted the grain purchase and sale interventions in 2001 in order to stabilize market prices and support farmers. The government sells grain from the intervention fund when prices rise excessively and buys it when prices fall too low.