By the end of this agricultural year Russia will reduce corn exports by half, predicts the general director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) Dmitry Rylko.
„Despite the fact that the corn crop this year will be comparable to level of the year last year, we will not see the highest ever exports. This year it will be only about 950,000 tonnes against 1.885 million tonnes last year,” said Rylko. According to Rylko this year with the good harvest and low prices the corn is very important for livestock producers as it is the main component of feed. „This year, for example, corn is replacing wheat and barley in feed within due limits. This largely explains the high demand for it in the domestic market” he added. The Director of IKAR also pointed out that last year 6.962 million tonnes of maize was collected. IKAR predicts that this year the volume of corn harvest will be even higher, up to 7.050 million tonnes. The US Department of Agriculture estimates the harvest of corn in Russia this year will be at the level of 7 million tonnes. As of 23 October, the total volume of contracts for export is still very low  it is amounts to 350,000 tonnes. The main buyers of Russian corn this year will be Turkey, Egypt, Israel. “Producers in the Central regions of Russia fully intend to sell their production in the domestic market, while producers in the southern regions of the country intend to sell only a part of their production in the domestic market. This year, the businesses got a lot of money from the sale of other crops [wheat, barley, soy etc], and therefore they are not in a hurry to sell the corn right now. So this year we will see the competition between export directions and domestic market,” he added.