By VOA News and wire services
12 August 2010 Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says a full one-quarter of Russia’s grain crops have been destroyed by weeks of drought and wildfires, leaving many Russian farmers close to bankruptcy. Mr. Medvedev spoke Thursday to farmers and grain traders in southern Russia, calling the situation “difficult” and even “extreme.” He did not quantify the grain losses in his address. But official estimates show more than 43 million hectares were sown for this year’s harvests. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced a ban on Russian grain exports that could last until the end of the year, in a push to control domestic food and livestock feed prices. The ban pushed wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade to a two-year high of $7.85 a bushel, and is expected to drive a spike in grain prices in much of the world. Mr. Medvedev on Thursday also lifted a state of emergency in three of seven regions hit by the worst of the wildfires. Patrols have also been boosted at a key nuclear power plant in western Russia, located near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in nearby Ukraine. The official death toll from the Russian fires, weeks of drought and record-high temperatures stands at 52. But authorities in the capital say the Moscow death rate had jumped from a norm of 350 a day to more than 700 deaths daily by early this week. Skies over Moscow were clear Thursday, giving the city’s 10 million residents desperately needed relief from more than a week of a thick, acrid smog blanketing the city. The Emergency Situations Ministry said Thursday the acreage engulfed by fire around Moscow continues to shrink, as emergency workers pump water into dry peat bogs ignited by the fires outside the city. Workers are piping water from the Oka River into the bogs, which were drained decades ago to harvest fuel. Entire villages have been devastated over a wide area of central and western Russia, with thousands of rural residents losing everything in the past month.
Russia Reports 25 Percent Grain Losses from Drought, Fires
