Cutbacks to farm support in Russia, which is attempting to promote itself as a cereals superpower, may prohibit growers from raising winter grain sowings to 17.8m hectares as planned, a US briefing has said.

The note comes hot on the heels of government backing for Ministry of Agriculture plans to delay intervention buying, and is echoed in a report from Moscow-based analysis group SovEcon.

Farmers intend to add 600,000 hectares to winter grain sowings this year, taking winter wheat plantings to 14.3m hectares, a report from US Moscow attaché Yelena Vassilieva said. Winter wheat sowings last year were estimated at 13.8m acres by SovEcon.

However, grain plantings, of which more than 570,000 hectares was completed by August 19, may be held back by "growing financial constraints", Ms Vassilieva warned.

Intervention delay

Russia's announced earlier this year that it planned to raise grain production to 135m tonnes within 10-15 years, about 50% more than 2009 output.

However, the global economic crisis has prompted it to cut the Ministry of Agriculture budget by 14%, trimming funds available for state grain buying programmes.  

The Ministry last week won support to delay to October, from the end of August, the proposed start data for intervention buying.

"Market prices are decreasing and farmers are looking forward to these interventions," Ms Vassilieva said, noting that milling wheat prices dropped last month to 75% of that proposed for when the state-buying programme starts.

"However, a lower intervention budget will not allow purchases to exceed more than 4.0m tonnes of grain, and these interventions will hardly support domestic prices," Ms Vassilieva said.

Her findings were echoed in a SovEcon report which said that many farmers, particularly in the south of Russia, had been relying on money from intervention buying to fund winter sowings.

Quality concern

Ms Vassilieva added that only 8% of farmers who were affected by a drought this year were insured, although some provincial support programmes were in place.

"Given the budget constraints, farmers could hardly rely on significant support from the federal budget," she said.

Furthermore, prospects for the 2010 harvest may also be dimmed by the quality of seed used.

"[The] Ministry of Agriculture estimated that farmers will need 3.87m tonnes of planting seeds to sow the planned area, and that farmers have almost 4.0m tonnes of their own planting seeds of grain crops," Ms Vassilieva said.

"However... there are no reports on the quality of seeds, and it looks like most of the planting seeds will be the 'saved' grain from the 2008 crop."

For wheat, winter sowings of 13.8m hectares in 2008-09 compared with 14.9m hectares of spring plantings, according to SovEcon data.