Russia farmers suffer ‘catastrophe’ in baking summer
By Mokrye Kurnali, Russia (AFP) July 25, 2010
Russian farm owner Ilshat Gumerov stands in the middle of his fields under the mercilessly hot sun with a look of despair on his face. His 700-hectare land in the central Volga region of Tatarstan has not been touched by a drop of rain in weeks amid one of the severest heatwaves of the century in Russia. He already fears he has lost two thirds of his harvest. “It is a catastrophe,” he said, ruefully fingering the dried-up ears of wheat. “This year I am going to make no profit. It will only be enough to buy fodder.” No rain has fallen since April in this largely Muslim region 800 kilometres east of Moscow while temperatures over the last weeks have jumped over 30 degrees Celsius. And this after a bitter winter whose thaw destroyed winter crops. The drought is not just bad news for Gumerov and thousands of other farmers across Russia but also for grain consumers worldwide and the country’s ambitions to become a leading global grain exporter. Twenty three of Russia’s 83 regions, mainly situated in the European part of the country, have declared a state of emergency over the drought. According to the ministry of agriculture, 10 million hectares of land have been destroyed by the heatwave, equivalent to around 20 percent of all of Russia’s arable land. “The drought is extremely unusual because we have never seen such temperatures and such a lack of rain in the European part of Russia,” said leading Russian agriculture expert Dmitry Rylko. …
