Dynamics of Grain Production in Russia: Influence of Political and Climatic Factors in the Historical Context

Abstract

In recent years, Russia has established itself as the world’s leading grain exporter. The record increase in grain yields over the past decade has occurred against a backdrop of worsening climatic conditions predicted by most global circulation models. In the context of Russia’s agricultural history, such an increase in cereal production looks exceptional, as the current annual growth rate of cereal production is about twice as high as in any historical period when the modernisation of Russia’s agricultural sector took place. In this context, the nature of climate change and agricultural policy in the last decade and their contribution to the accelerated growth of grain production in the modern period are discussed on the basis of “yield- weather” regression models. Regression models for the period 1958–2020 show that the last decade has been characterised by a clear divergence between actual and climate-related (modelled) yields in the main grain-producing zone of the country. The regions with increasing divergence between regression model results and actual grain yields form a geographically compact group and include two regions, the North Caucasus and the Central Chernozem, while in the other regions there is still good agreement between regression models and yields. The success of cereal production in southern European Russia is difficult to explain in terms of climate, as there has been a marked increase in temperature with slight changes or even decreases in precipitation, leading to drier conditions during the growing season. We see the discrepancy between climate regression models and real yields in these regions as evidence of a larger contribution of agricultural reforms to higher yields. These reforms primarily benefit the farms that occupy most of the most productive land in the Central Chernozem and North Caucasus regions.