© RIA
Russian farmers reaped a record wheat harvest of more than 86 million tons in 2017, with the overall production of grains reaching over 135.5 million tons.
The second largest wheat crop was harvested last year. It totaled 85.9 million tons, while production of all grains, including wheat, neared 133.465 million tons, according to Russia's Federal State Statistics Service.
However, the numbers slightly differ from those published by the USDA, which had previously reported that Russia had secured a wheat crop of some 85.2 million tons in 2017, and 85.35 million tons in 2020.
According to US analysts, Russia's complete stocks of wheat will total 15.082 million tons by the end of June 2022, compared to the 12.082 million tons projected for the end of the current agricultural season, June 30.
"Stocks in Russia are forecast to expand the most as the government continues to implement export tax measures despite another bumper crop," the USDA said in its report.
Comment: The achievement is particularly notable because elsewhere in the world farmers are suffering a rise of crop failures and disease outbreaks that is increasingly threatening food stocks. In part, this is due to a rise in extreme weather and increasingly erratic seasons, but the issue has been made many times worse thanks to decades of deleterious agricultural practices, as well as the recent and ongoing lockdowns: