Wheat Planting Falls to 4-Year Low in Russia Amid Export Ban
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Russia’s ban on grain exports means the country’s farmers will plant the fewest wheat fields in four years, another sign that global prices will keep rising.
Wheat plantings in the country, once the second-biggest exporter, will drop 2.3 percent to 64.2 million acres for this year’s crop, according to the median in a Bloomberg survey of as many as 19 producers, traders and analysts. Farmers can’t plant more because the ban imposed after last summer’s drought is limiting farm income. Diesel was 30 percent higher than a year earlier in January and OAO Acron, Russia’s third-biggest nitrogen fertilizer producer, raised some prices by more than 12 percent for the first half.