Putin instructed the Cabinet to support Russian grain producers

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the heads of parliamentary parties that he instructed the government to buy grain from Russian farmers.

“Your proposals that have been voiced here, for example, to help agricultural producers sell grain, including the purchase of reserves.” Absolutely right, I fully support it. I have already given such an instruction to the government, and I will soon have a supervising deputy prime minister, and we will certainly discuss all this. I hope that the situation will be resolved, Putin said, commenting on the speech of the leader of the Communist party Gennady Zyuganov.

The Communist leader at a meeting with Putin called the grain harvest of 2026 “very good”, but drew attention to the difficulties of farmers with its sale. According to him, without prompt purchase of grain at an acceptable price, the sowing campaign and next year’s harvest may be at risk. “Urgently they need to buy at a normal price a good batch [of grain], <...> we have a time reserve is running out,” Zyuganov said.

In August, at a meeting in the Ministry of Agriculture, additional measures to support grain producers were already discussed, three sources told RBC in the grain market. Among the proposals were the purchase of grain in the intervention fund, the extension of preferential short-term loans for up to a year and additional subsidies. First of all, aid was supposed to be sent to the southern regions, where farmers faced difficulties in selling crops and repaying loans.

The head of the Ministry of agriculture Oksana Lut later estimated the possible volume of interventions in 1-3 million tons. With an excess of supply, the state buys grain, maintaining prices, and with a shortage of it, sells reserves on the market. In August, the Federal intervention Fund was about 3.7 million tons of grain, the last purchases were conducted in the first half of 2024.

On August 12, Reuters, citing sources, wrote that two of the largest Russian grain terminals in the port of Novorossiysk were damaged due to night strikes by Ukrainian UAVs. The source of RBC said that during the strike, the infrastructure of transshipment of agricultural cargo was damaged, the Novorossiysk grain terminal was damaged. The representative of “Demeter Holding” confirmed RBC damage.