MOSCOW - Russian agriculture consultancy SovEcon said on Thursday it had raised its forecast for Russia's 2021 wheat crop by 1 million tonnes to 81.7 million tonnes due to a larger than expected harvest area.
Russia competes with the European Union for the rank of the world's largest wheat exporter. Turkey, Egypt and Bangladesh are the largest buyers of its wheat.
"The weather has been favourable for the new wheat crop prospects in recent weeks," Andrey Sizov at Sovecon said in a note. "We see good moisture reserves in almost all wheat regions."
Farmers will be harvesting winter wheat from 17 million hectares this summer, not 16.8 million hectares as previously expected, Sovecon said.
It also raised its estimate of the average winter wheat yield to 3.50 tonnes per hectare from 3.48 due to favourable weather in Russia's southern regions, the main wheat producing area.
Sovecon's estimate of the spring wheat planting area remains at 12.7 million hectares, with a yield of 1.75 tonnes per hectare.
Its forecast for the country's 2021 grain crop was raised by 700,000 tonnes to 129.2 million tonnes, including 19.7 million tonnes of barley and 14.4 million tonnes of corn.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt; Editing by David Evans and Jan Harvey) ((Polina.Devitt@thomsonreuters.com))
