Large batches of low-quality grain revealed in Russia: will consumers suffer?

An audit conducted by Rosselkhoznadzor following the results of the past year showed that more than 15% of products on the domestic grain market are of poor quality. In other words, every sixth or seventh ton can be safely called a marriage unfit for consumption. It is difficult to say whether this is a lot or a little when it comes to the food market. Bread, as you know, is a noun, but for some strange reason, wheat, which is considered the main grain crop of our country, was not included in the anti-rating.

Through the “purgatory” of the Grain Quality Assessment Center, a subordinate institution of the Rosselkhoznadzor, five types of grain crops passed: rye, buckwheat, soybeans, corn and rice. The inspection covered about 40 million tons of both the products themselves and processed products, that is, 98% of the gross harvest. As a result, harsh and meticulous inspectors revealed 6 million tons of low-quality goods that “do not meet the stated requirements.”

According to experts, the percentage of defects found in cereals will not affect the country’s consumer market (rye, buckwheat and rice) in any way. What is 6 million tons, if last year Russia set a gross harvest record of 150 million tons? A drop in the sea.

In addition, we collected about 2.2 million tons of rye, and this volume is more than enough to fully satisfy domestic needs and even leave something in the stash. It will hardly be possible to sell these surpluses to the foreign market – rye is not traded in large volumes on world exchanges. Rye bread, beloved by Russians, is no longer eaten in the world.

With buckwheat, we are also in full order, it was harvested by 40% more than in 2021, and in stores it even fell a little bit in price. Rice was harvested 300 thousand tons less than expected, but this “gap” is compensated by imports of long-grain “pearl grain” from the countries of Southeast Asia. It is not grown in Russia, although it is widely in demand in cooking.

Of course, a curious question arises about the quality of wheat, the record harvest of which – about 100 million tons – was harvested by Russia last year. For some reason, it was not included in the state monitoring. And I want to know about the baking qualities of the new crop, about the content of gluten, which divides wheat into food and fodder.

But there is no such data. In agrarian circles, they assure that its quality is also vigilantly checked, since bread is the main product. What else to check, if not wheat? However, data on this crop is not always “publicly available”.

Perhaps we know why. Even at the dawn of the spring sowing campaign in 2022, many experts predicted that the harvest would hardly please us, both in terms of gross yield and its quality. There were quite objective reasons for that. Due to the latest package of economic sanctions introduced at that time, the price of imported seeds, foreign plant protection products and spare parts for foreign agricultural machinery rose sharply. All these reasons taken together were to play a sinister role in cultivation and in the gross harvest.

Fortunately, analysts of little faith were put to shame, domestic farmers grew and poured into the bins of their homeland so much wheat that these bins were not even enough to take a rich harvest. We do not have the capacity of elevators that could accommodate additional millions of tons of grain.

True, here the weather helped the domestic peasants a lot, it was like an order. That gave a solid increase in the harvest: 159 million tons of grain in bunker weight and 150 million in net.

However, the quantity of wheat did not translate into quality. As some experts predicted, it let us down last harvest. There is no official data yet, but it is known that we have collected large volumes of wheat of grades 4 and 5, which are not used in the baking industry.

Analysts talk about the “simplified” technology of wheat cultivation, which Russian grain growers were forced to switch to last year. The fact is that the export duty, which the state levies on grain growers, should have returned to them exactly in time for the sowing campaign, when it is necessary to create stocks of chemicals for processing fields, to purchase spare parts and seed material. However, the money came in much smaller volumes and the farmers had to save big and small, refuse to carry out the entire technological chain. Farmers are asking to cancel this duty this year. But who will cancel it if it goes to the state?