Soviet-Era Grain Record Seen Tumbling on Bumper Russian Crop
- Wheat, corn crops will both reach all-time high, ProZerno says
- Estimates may rise further as harvesting progresses in Siberia
A wheat harvest in Russia in 1979.
Photographer: Ilya Pavlenko/TASS via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
A quarter century after the collapse of the USSR, Russian farmers are finally poised to beat the record for grain production that the country set during the Soviet era.
The harvest will total at least 130.7 million metric tons this year on bumper wheat and corn crops, said Vladimir Petrichenko, director general of Moscow-based consultant ProZerno. That would push production 2.6 percent above the previous all-time high in 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan under leader Leonid Brezhnev.