MOSCOW: Russian agricultural consultancy Sovecon revised its forecast for the country’s 2024 wheat crop down to 82.9 million metric tons from 84.7 million tons on Friday, citing lower yields and a smaller seeded area as reasons for the downgrade.

Extreme weather events, such as early spring frosts, floods, and summer heat, have affected this year’s harvest outlook in some key producing areas of the world’s largest wheat exporter.

“This adjustment reflects a smaller area figure recently reported by Russia’s statistical agency, as well as lower yield projections,” the agency said in a note.

The Rosstat statistical agency has estimated the area under wheat for the 2024 harvest to be 4.2% less than in 2023, at 28.5 million hectares. Sovecon’s earlier estimate was 29.2 million hectares. Sovecon also said it had lowered its crop estimate for the Southern, Central, and Siberian regions by 0.7 million tons each, while the Volga Valley region crop was revised upward by 0.5 million tons. IKAR, another Russian consultancy, said today it had raised its forecast for this year’s wheat harvest by 0.6 million tons to 83.8 million tons.

Russian authorities are maintaining their official grain harvest forecast for the year of 132 million tons, of which 85-86 million tons is wheat.