Black Sea grain crop, exports cut by heat, rains

Severe drought and torrential rains have cut into crops of major grain-growing region the Black Sea forcing most countries in the region to revise their export plans downwards, officials and analysts said. Russian officials are very careful giving crop forecasts but on Tuesday, the economy ministry recognised this year's grain crop may be less than 80 million tonnes, 5 million tonnes below the latest official forecast. Analysts believe that the crop may fall to less than 70 million tonnes.

Neighbouring Ukraine's government has said the 2010 grain crop may fall to 42-43 million tonnes from 46 million in 2009. Analysts expect the wheat crop to be 18.1-18.6 million tonnes, down from 20.9 million, barley to be 10.1-10.2 million tonnes, down from 11.8 million tonnes. The government has also said a fall in harvest will cut grain exports in the 2010/11 season to about 16 million tonnes. They predicted the exports of 5.0 million tonnes of barley and 6.7 million tonnes of wheat in 2010/11. In 2009/10 Ukraine exported 9.2 million tonnes of wheat and 6.2 million of barley.

Bulgaria's wheat crop is estimated to have fallen by about 500,000 tonnes to 3.5 million tonnes, but it is still expecting to have an exportable surplus. Bulgarian traders and farmers hope Bulgaria may still be able to export about 1.5 million tonnes of wheat from the 2010 crop. Bulgaria exported 1.4 million tonnes of wheat from the 2009 crop. Exports to Spain, Italy and Greece already started.