Russia faces a record loss of winter crops

Having survived the frost and drought this year, Russian farmers may face a new problem – a decade-long record loss of winter crops. The share of poor and failed winter crops for the 2025 harvest “has reached an unprecedentedly huge 38%,” according to the ProZerno analytical center.

“It has never been so bad,” analysts write: the area of poor and failed winter crops reached 6.47 million hectares, and only 31% of crops are in ‘good’ condition, compared to 74% a year ago. “In general, across Russia (excluding the annexed regions), winter crops are in good condition on only 5.48 mln ha, which is the smallest amount of good crops before entering winter in the last 23 years,” ProZerno said.

The most difficult situation is in the Central Federal District (CFD), where almost two-thirds of the crops have not sprouted or are in poor condition – 2.07 mln ha. Almost half of winter crops (44%) are classified as “poor” in the Southern Federal District (SFD). “The reason for the troubles is largely due to the summer-autumn drought of 2024,” ProZerno notes. Due to weather problems, at least five Russian regions have declared a state of emergency, and in some regions it did not rain from April to October.

Problems with the harvest were one of the reasons for the acceleration of inflation, said Alexander Isakov, Russia economist at Bloomberg Economics. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, by the end of November, the growth rate of food prices reached 10.2%, a record high in almost two years, and some basic food products soared in price by tens of percent: potatoes by 78%, cabbage by 31%, beets by 27%, and butter by 31%.

Tags: Russia, crop condition