Russia Overstating Usable Grain Stocks - Analyst

The amount of usable grain that Russia has stockpiled may be less than official statistics indicate, one of the country's leading agricultural research firm's said Friday.

The latest official figures on carryover stocks may "give the illusion that the market is stabilizing and price growth has been successfully avoided," said Andrei Sizov Jr., editor of SovEcon, in a research note.

Sizov cast doubt on the Federal Statistics Service's report that Russia had 25.8 million metric tons of grain stockpiled. An earlier estimate of around 21.7 million tons was last month revised by the statistics service after a review ordered by the Agriculture Ministry.

Much of the grain in the revised figure is held at "backyard farms" and consumed by them, and will therefore never hit the market, Sizov said.

He also said that Rosstat doesn't physically count the grain, relying instead on statistical methods.

"Playing with numbers won't make more grain appear on the market," Sizov said.

SovEcon has previously estimated Russia's grain stocks at 20.2 million tons.

Weeks of record high temperatures and no rain have destroyed around a third of Russia's grain crop, cutting the country's harvest to between 60 million and 65 million tons, down from initial forecasts of 97 million.