UPDATE 1-Russia’s IKAR cuts wheat harvest forecast after severe weather

(Recasts, adds)

MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) – Russia’s IKAR agricultural consultancy has cut forecasts for Russia’s wheat harvest and exports after unusually hot spring weather combined with bitter frosts in the heart of Russia’s bread basket, it said on Tuesday.

IKAR cut its Russian wheat crop forecast to 83.5 million metric tons from 86 million tons and cut the projection for Russian wheat exports to 45 million tons from 47 million tons.

“This is predominantly a combination of recent frosts and dry weather across the European Russia,” Dmitry Rylko, general director of IKAR, told Reuters.

“Another emerging factor is very difficult sowing conditions in Western Siberia (where there have been heavy rains), though it is still minor and quite contradictory: We might end-up with a very strong crop there.”

China is the world’s biggest wheat producer but Russia is usually the top exporter.

The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), one of the two leading agricultural consultancies in Russia, cut the overall grain crop forecast for the country to 132 million tons from 135 million tons and its total grain exports outlook to 57 million tons from 59.5 million tons.

Russia’s new agriculture minister, Oksana Lut, said last week that 900,000 hectares of frost-hit crops would need to be replanted. (Reporting by Reuters Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Goodman )

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