The current severe cold snap that the European region of Russia is experiencing could affect the state of winter crops, but the situation is not critical, the Ministry of Agriculture said.
"The hard frosts could definitely impact the state of winter crops, but this will depend on the levels of snow," Deputy Agriculture Minister Andrei Volkov told journalists on the sidelines of the international agricultural conference "Where the Margin is" in Moscow on Thursday.
Volkov said that the area under winter crops was lowered by nearly 1 million hectares in 2014 compared with last year.
This occurred due to natural cataclysms, such as rain, which prevented equipment from entering the field on time, he said.
"In these conditions, the Agriculture Ministry is going to recommend that the amount of land designated for spring crops be increased in order to compensate for the shortfall in the winter crop area," Volkov said, adding that the situation with winter crops was "not fatal or critical" and that "we will be hoping that all of this [total crop area in 2014] will even out thanks to spring sowing.
We are not yet raising the alarm, but the situation is under control." He said that Russia's agriculture ministry is keeping its target for the 2014 harvest at no less than 95 million tonnes of grain.
"This is the figure in the state program and the plan," he said, adding that "the harvest will nonetheless depend on environmental conditions. But that's the plan."
Answering the question of whether the current state of winter crops and plans to increase the spring sowing will affect the calculations for the 2014 harvest, Volkov said: "Yes for now. But this is very preliminary."
Russia's harvested 91.3 million tonnes of grain in 2013 and 70.9 million tonnes in 2012.
Eight federal and regional highways were closed in southern Russia's Stavropol territory over bad weather. Traffic on highways is impossible over heavy snowfall, strong winds and low visibility.
"Restriction is in effect on Caucasus federal highway from Nevinnomyssk to Mineralnye Vody and the road leading to the city of Stavropol, on Astrakhan-Elista-Stavropol federal highway and from 458th to 473rd kilometer in the Ipatovsky district," the road police noted.
"Heavy snow and strong side winds do not allow snowploughs to clear the roadway timely. This may trigger road accidents and traffic jams on the roads," the road police warned.
Warm-up stations were opened on Stavropol roads, rescuers were put on duty at especially hard traffic sections of the roads. The fire service has dispatched four off-road vehicles Nefaz, mobile warm-up stations are placed on Nevinnomyssk-Kursavka and Kursavka-Mineralnye Vody road, on Elista-Stavropol highway, Neftekumsk-Zelenokumsk highway and on Neftekumsk-Blagodarny highway. Mobile warm-up stations are provided with medical kits, hot tea, warm blankets and dry food rations.
Stavropol weather forecasting center reported that due to the cold Arctic anticyclone moving southwards heavy snowfall, snow blizzard and eastern winds of 18-23 meters per second are forecast in the territory for the next few days. On January 30-31, frosts will get stronger to minus 20 degrees Celsius and to minus 25 degrees Celsius at some places in Stavropol Territory. Ice slick and snow drifts are reported on the roads.
Source - http://voiceofrussia.com/
