Russia may harvest less than 80 mln tons of wheat in 2025

Russia’s wheat harvest in 2025 may reach 84 million tons, but there is a high probability that it will be below 80 million tons, Dmitry Rylko, general director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Conjuncture (IKAR), said at the conference “Pork-2024”.

“Our forecast “fork” for wheat is 84 million tons (base forecast – IF), but if we are unlucky (with weather – IF), we will go below 80 million tons. The chances of this are very high, let’s not kid ourselves. But theoretically there can be quite a good harvest,” he said.

According to him, the 2025 harvest depends largely on the condition of winter crops. He cited Rosgidromet’s estimate that 37% of winter crops sown this year are in poor condition or have not sprouted.

“Since 2023, there has not been such a share of bad and unripened fields as this season,” Rylko noted.

He cautioned that “trumpeting and ringing bells,” as some experts have already begun to do, is not yet worth it.

“Analysis of each of the regions and key fields shows that in each of the regions the situation is still correctable in 90% of cases. Even a failed seedling can still theoretically give a very good result if we are lucky with the weather in winter and spring. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ here, but nevertheless, we can theoretically get a good harvest,” he said.

According to Roshydromet, a year ago the share of crops in poor and unripened condition amounted to only 4%. This year, the share of crops in satisfactory condition rose to 32% from 22% a year ago, while the share in good condition fell to 32% from 74%.

According to the optimistic forecast of ICAR, wheat harvest in 2025 may reach 89 million tons, according to the presentation. Its exports in the new season (July 2025-June 2026) are forecast at 37-45 million tons, the baseline estimate is 41 million tons.

This year, ICAR forecasts wheat harvest of 81.8 million tons, its exports in the 2024/25 season at 43.5 million tons.

In 2023, Russia harvested 92.8 million tons of wheat, its exports in 2023/24 season of 54.1 million tons.

Tags: Russia, wheat, crop forecast