Russia, devastated by a severe drought, had harvested 47 million tonnes of grain by bunker weight by September 8, down 34 percent from a year ago, Agriculture Ministry data on Friday showed. The data on the ministry's website www.mcx.ru showed that grains hade been threshed on 23.7 million hectares, or 67 percent of the total harvesting area by September 8.
In a separate detailed harvesting progress report obtained by Reuters on Friday, the ministry estimated total harvesting area for this year's crop at 35.57 million hectares. This indicates that the drought had destroyed crops on 8 million hectares, or around 18 percent of the total sown area. The country had sown a total of 43.6 million hectares with winter and spring grains for the 2010 crop, according to the state's statistics office Rosstat.
At the same date last year, farmers harvested 70.8 million tonnes of grain from 28 million hectares, or 59 percent of the total harvesting area. Average yields declined this year to 1.98 tonnes per hectare from 2.5 tonnes per hectare a year ago. Russia expects to harvest a little more than 60 million tonnes of grain this year by clean weight, down from 97 million in 2009.
Bunker weight is normally about 7-8 percent higher than clean weight, obtained after grain has been cleaned and dried. But the difference can be smaller in hot and dry years like this one. Harvesting is practically over in European Russia, but it is continuing in the Urals, Siberia and the country's far eastern part, the ministry said.
Farmers had harvested 31.6 million tonnes of wheat by September 8, down from 42.0 million a year ago. Wheat had been threshed on 14.6 million hectares, or 65 percent of the total harvesting area of 22.4 million hectares. Average yields fell to 2.17 tonnes per hectare from 2.80 tonnes. The barley harvest collapsed to 6.98 million tonnes from 14.37 million, and maize crop was 400,000 tonnes, as it started earlier than last year.
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