Russia Faces A Food Crisis

Due to the coldest spring on record in nearly 40 years.

The prolonged cold spring this year may lead to a reduction in the harvest in Russia, as the sowing campaign in some regions has already been delayed by several weeks, representatives of the agricultural industry told "Izvestia".

The lack of positive temperatures and high soil moisture, in which it is impossible to work at the moment, hinder the start of sowing, said the head of the Association of Peasant (Farm) Farms and Agricultural Cooperatives of Russia (AKKOR) in Tulsk, Russia. According to him, risks for future crops are also posed by the sudden onset of warm weather. In this case the ground will be dry and late sowing will be unfavorable.

"The last similar spring with such unfavorable conditions, when it snowed in April, was in 1987, i.e. 39 years ago. Now there are difficulties in almost all regions of Central Russia and even in the Volga region," says Nikita Tokmakov, a farmer from Voronezh. He added that agrarians have no time to plant early spring crops such as barley, peas and wheat, so with the onset of good weather they will choose whether to plant them or focus on late spring crops such as corn, sunflower and soybeans. Alexei Krasilnikov, Executive Director of the Potato Union, also noted the problems with planting potatoes, for which the soil temperature should be at least 8 degrees Celsius. The Ministry of Agriculture recognizes the difficulties with the beginning of the sowing season: sowing of spring crops has been carried out on the area of about 4 out of 56 million hectares. At the same time, a total of 83 million hectares should be sown with various crops.

"The lag is still serious due to bad weather. But there is nothing terrible in it, the seasons are different," said the head of the department Oksana Lut. At the same time, she refused to give a forecast on the future harvest. The current pace of the sowing season is twice lower than last year, said former Deputy Minister of Agriculture Leonid Kholod. The association "People's Farmer" called the situation working. According to the director of the organization Stanislav Sankeev, it is premature to talk about problems with the harvest, as the final result will depend on the entire season, including temperatures, precipitation, plant development and quality of care for crops.

In the meantime, the agency ICAR has already lowered the forecast of wheat harvest in Russia in 2026 - from 91 to 90 million tons. The export potential for the 2026-27 season has also been lowered from 47.5 to 46.5 million tons.

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