Russian winter crop loss to be around 6% this year - Skrynnik
MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) - The loss of winter crops under harvest this year will be at an average level, or around 6% of sown areas, Russia's Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik said on the television channel Rossiya 24 on Tuesday.
"What we are seeing is an average figure, and for the year, we are most likely to see an average loss figure - around 6%," she said.
"There's nothing scary about this; it's an expected, normal phenomenon," she added.
The Agriculture Ministry was mostly concerned by the situation in the Krasnodar territory. Information received from the region shows that roughly 6,000 hectares of winter crops will need to be reseeded, and that 150 million additional rubles will be needed for such efforts, Skrynnik said.
The situation with winter crops "will in no way affect the results of this year's harvest," she said. Skrynnik confirmed an earlier forecast that Russia's gross grain harvest could be roughly on a level with last year's harvest - 94 million tonnes.