Putin Bans Russia
Grain Exports Due to Drought
AFP/File – Wheat awaits a harvester at the Kubankhleb
farm in Tikhoretsk in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, …
by
Stuart Williams Stuart Williams
Thu Aug 5,
12:22 pm ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia, the world's third wheat
exporter, Thursday banned grain exports for the next four-and-a-half months due
to a record drought that has destroyed millions of hectares (acres) of its
land.
Wheat futures shot up to new two-year highs on commodities markets after the
sudden announcement from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin raised concerns about
global grain supplies.
"In connection with the unusually high temperatures and the drought, I
consider it right to impose a temporary ban on the export from Russia of grain
and other products produced from grain," Putin told a government meeting.
Russia
earlier this week slashed its 2010 grain harvest forecast to 70-75 million tonnes, compared with a harvest of 97 million tonnes in 2009, owing to the worst drought for decades.
Last year, Russia
exported 21.4 million tonnes of grain and observers
had already warned that could be sharply lower this year owing to the drought.
The prime minister's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
the export ban would come into force August 15 and remain in place until
December 31.
"We must not allow an increase in domestic prices and must preserve the
headcount of our cattle," Putin said in comments broadcast on state
television.
Putin signed a decree imposing the ban which also stated that Russia would ask fellow members of a regional
customs union -- Belarus
and Kazhakhstan -- to make a similar move. Kazakhstan is
also a major world grain exporter.
"There can only be one comment -- shock," said Vladimir Petrichenko, director of the Prozerno
agricultural analytical firm.
"We will only be able to return to the global markets with a tarnished
reputation, with losses," he told Interfax.
Russia's
policy after December 31 would be determined by the results of the harvest,
Putin said. Russia
has seen 20 percent of its arable land (10 million hectares, 24.7 million
acres) destroyed in the heatwave.
The severity of the drought has seen states of emergency declared in 27
regions and dealt a major blow to Russia's ambitions of ramping up
its global market share over the next years.
Putin also announced that agriculture producers who had suffered as a result
of the drought would receive financial aid totalling
35 billion rubles (1.17 billion dollars).
Concerns about Russia --
coupled with a drought that has also hit Ukraine
and Kazakhstan as well as a
low harvest in Canada
-- had already led to a spike in global wheat prices to two-year highs.
On Euronext, the November milling wheat future
jumped after Putin's announcement to 226 euros per
metric tonne, up 8.25 percent on the day.
In Chicago,
September wheat shot up to 7.83 dollars a bushel from 7.26 dollars while the
December contract jumped to 8.09 dollars from 7.55 dollars.
Dmitry Rylko, director of the Institute for
Agricultural Market Studies, described Putin's decision as one that would be
"extraordinarily painful for market participants," Interfax reported.
But he said Russia's
trade partners "will not be left without grain. There is enough grain on
the global markets. This year there has been a good harvest in the United States and Western
Europe, for example."
Russia's
average annual domestic consumption of grain is estimated at around 77 million tonnes and Putin said the country currently has reserves of
9.5 million tonnes.
Russia has been planning
to boost its market share significantly over the next years by modernising infrastructure, in particular storage silos,
and exploiting land that was left fallow under the Soviet
Union.
It had been aiming to more than double exports to 40-50 million tonnes a year by increasing supplies to grain-hungry
consumers like Egypt.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Alexander Belyayev had
Tuesday moved to calm markets by saying that "for the moment" Russia did not
plan to impose export restrictions. "Exports are very easy to lose and
very hard to win," he noted.