Russian winter crop damage may be less than estimate

Russia’s winter grains may have escaped some damage forecast by the government because of warm weather in southern areas last month, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, known as Ikar, said.

Damage may cover 1.2 million hectares (about 3 million acres) to 1.3 million hectares, Oleg Sukhanov, Ikar analyst, said by phone from Moscow today. That equals 7.6 percent to 8.2 percent of plantings. The government estimated 9.5 percent of losses from 15.8 million hectares of plantings.