Sergey Feofilov: Prospects for Black Sea grain crop are rather optimistic

According to Sergey Feofilov, General Director of UkrAgroConsult, Black Sea region (inc. Russia and Ukraine) may receive good grain crop.

In Ukraine, winter and spring crops areas are forecast approximately at the last year level. Wheat yields are likely to be slightly more than 4.06 t/ha, this is three years average, but 3% behind the last year's level due to weather impact. Wheat yield might recover later if friendly precipitation comes in April – May.

In Russia, grain production forecast is even more optimistic. Wheat area is expected to grow by 2% compared to last year. Winter wheat conditions are the best in recent years, yields are predicted higher than average

Another important finding - as a rule, in the years with early springs, such as this year, grain yields are higher than the trend. 2008 and 2013 were with similar early springs and in both of that years grain yield exceeded the averages for the previous three years by 25-30%.

As a conclusion -  the market appears to be absolutely confident of two things. The first - the 2020 grain production will be around 70 MMT. The next - sharp contraction in foreign demand for the Black Sea grain will be avoided.