The Winter Grain Conference was held in Belokurikha (Altai Territory) on February 26-28 for the 13th time. The event was attended by 250 people from 20 regions of Russia and five foreign countries: Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova, Lithuania, Turkey. These are agricultural producers, representatives of grain processing enterprises, traders and leading experts and analysts of the agricultural market.
Such a number of participants is another conference record. Moreover, remembering the previous year, when not everyone was able to get to the forum due to lack of available seats, this time the participants showed activity long before the event, and by the beginning of February all the seats in the conference room of the Sibir resort were occupied.
The agenda of the Grain Conference is unchanged year after year: experts summed up the results of the agricultural year, talked about the situation on the grain market, gave an assessment of the quality of the harvest in 2019, and each expressed their forecast for the next agricultural year.
Valery Gachman, president of the Union of grain processors of the Altai Territory (the main organizer of the Winter Grain Conference), opening the forum, noted that several unpredictable factors arose in this agricultural season that influenced the grain market. Coronavirus had a major impact on world trade, including the grain trade. Another factor: last year's drought in Kazakhstan seriously corrected the situation, they actively exported our grain. The third key topic: the growth of crop volume in Russia and at the same time a serious lag in exports. Subsequently, all these points were somehow touched upon by experts in their speeches.
According to Andrei Klepach, chief economist of the VEB of the Russian Federation, the Chinese economy is now braking against the backdrop of the coronavirus. As a result, the global economy can reduce growth by 0.1-0.2 pp. This will seriously affect oil prices, metals, food and export volumes. In Russia, GDP growth may decrease by 0.1%.
Speaking about the Russian economy, Evgeny Gavrilenkov, partner at GKEM Analytica, editor-in-chief of the Economic Journal of the Higher School of Economics, notes the underestimation of economic growth, considering that last year the economy showed a better result than the official one.
Meanwhile, coronavirus has already led to a drop in world grain prices, says Dmitry Rylko, Director General of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies.
Lower prices are not very happy for exporters and resellers - their margin is reduced. But agricultural producers, according to Vladimir Petrichenko, the general director of ProZerno LLC, have “a little more joy”. “The domestic price will not fall as much as the export, due to the purchase of grain by livestock farmers,” the expert says.
A good quality of winter crops is expected, a quite stable situation in spring. Grain harvest as a whole for 2020 is seen above 2019, presumably - 128 million tons., - Petrichenko explained.
Both world and Russian grain prices will undoubtedly be affected by the fact that in the USA and Canada there is a trend to reduce the acreage under wheat, said Dmitry Rylko (IKAR).
The Maslenitsa market was also given time at the conference. One of the most interesting presentations on this topic was from Alexander Maslov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, a well-known Russian Sinologist: “The Chinese market is good because every day it is new. Now he lives under the influence of the US-Chinese confrontation and his nature is not commercial ... ... Russians who come with their mills to the Chinese market must understand that all of it consists of nuances and there is complete dependence on the decisions of the regional leadership, and the essence is not in corruption, but in the clan system, ”said the expert.
Ukrainian experts presented their views on both the world grain market and the CIS market. Rodion Rybchinsky, director of the Ukrainian Flour Milling Association and current FAO expert, spoke about the opportunities and prospects that open up to all post-Soviet countries on the world grain market today. The speaker, while not sharing optimistic forecasts, presented a detailed picture of the movement of grain and flour on the European market and spoke about the prospects for working with African countries.
Andriy Druzyaka, director of Grain Star International Ukraine, shared the situation on the grain market of Ukraine and the agricultural prospects of his country, where the authorities completely rebooted and the Ministry of Agriculture was abolished, while 18% of Ukraine’s GDP is agricultural production and about 42.5-43 % - foreign exchange earnings to the country from agricultural exports.
The crisis and its impact on the consumer sentiment of Russians is another serious topic of the conference. Consumer market research and its global trends were presented by Sergey Yashko, Commercial Director of Gfk Rus.
In general, the 13th Winter Grain Conference was very lively, interesting for discussion and, as always, useful for business contacts. Despite the postponement of flights due to weather, snowy Altai roads, all participants and experts nevertheless got and gathered in Belokurikha.
The geography of participants, which is expanding every year, emphasizes the relevance and importance of the forum. It is possible to gather leading industry experts from Russia who are not represented at any such forum in such a forum solely thanks to the organizers of the Winter Grain Conference - the Altai Grain Processing Union and the personal participation of Valery Gachman, the Agricultural Market Research Institute (CEO Dmitry Rylko), LLC ProZerno "(CEO Vladimir Petrichenko) and Altai Mills LLC (CEO Vitaly Kopytov).
The Winter Grain Conference in Altai also has a unique opportunity to personally communicate with speakers, enter into a general discussion and make business contacts necessary for business. Such a format and the organization of the event at a high level (foreign participants also note it) make it possible to maintain interest in the Winter Grain Conference and annually attract "grain farmers" to a meeting in Belokurikha.
More detailed materials about the conference, excerpts from expert presentations can be found on the website http://zzk22.ru
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