In 2023, Russia exported agricultural products worth $43.5 billion

In 2023, Russia exported agricultural products totaling $43.5 billion, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut said at the grain forum in Dubai. She clarified that this figure could still be revised upward. In 2022, agricultural exports were smaller at $41.6 billion.

The key export item is grains. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, last year the Russian Federation exported 66 million tons of grain, including 51 million tons of wheat (while maintaining its status as its main exporter). This year, the export potential is estimated at 70 million tons. At the same time, prices for Russian wheat on the world market are falling. From the February bulletin of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) it follows that year-on-year in January they decreased by 20%. This is largely due to the high harvest of 2023 – 147 million tons, of which 96 million tons are wheat.

An additional influence on changes in wheat prices is exerted by significant carry-over stocks, formed, among other things, due to the record harvest in 2022 (157.7 million tons). As Dmitry Rylko, general director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), noted earlier, traders and agricultural producers now have a total of 36 million tons of wheat reserves alone.

The attempt to “build up” record reserves has already led to an increase in the share of exports (see chart). When recalculating estimates at the average dollar exchange rate for the year, it turns out that the growth of this indicator has noticeably accelerated over the past year. However, the current rate of grain export may not solve the problem of overstocking the domestic market. According to experts, to unload it by the end of the season, 19-19.5 million tons of wheat need to be exported, which is about 1 million tons more than what was exported during the same period last year – and then exports were a record.

The main supplies of agricultural products last year fell to the countries of the EAEU, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and North Africa, which are becoming the main partners of the Russian Federation in grain trade. China may retain its position as the largest buyer of Russian food. In 2022, it accounted for 12.3% of exports of agricultural products from the Russian Federation; in monetary terms, the volume of imported agricultural products amounted to $5.1 billion.

Kristina Borovikova