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00:19:49which has fed humanity for millennia and not only
00:19:52affects our wallets, but plays
00:19:55a huge role in the global economy. Sergey
00:19:58Viktorovich Kiselyov, Doctor
00:20:02of Economic Sciences, Head of the Department of Agroeconomics
00:20:05of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow, Lomonosov State University, will help
00:20:08us understand this topic. Hello, Sergey Viktorovich. Hello. If
00:20:12we had a time machine, to what period would we need to travel
00:20:15to observe firsthand how
00:20:19wheat stopped being just a food product, and
00:20:23its cultivation, and especially trade, began to
00:20:26directly influence the development of states,
00:20:30the establishment of trade routes, well, and even the course
00:20:33of historical events? Well, I think these are very early
00:20:36periods. Because civilization grew on
00:20:40grain crops, let's say, during Stolypin's reforms Russia, as
00:20:44you know, this is generally considered the peak of the Russian
00:20:47Empire's heyday, the year, with which we always...
00:21:20well, yes, these were revenues for the state, so in
00:21:23the conditions of peasant Russia, when
00:21:27often the peasants themselves might not have had enough bread, but we still
00:21:31sold bread, with the exception, of course, of individual years
00:21:34there were, when there were very severe crop failures, well,
00:21:38look, Sergey Viktorovich, if we abstract from specific figures,
00:21:41let's say, Russia produced 100% of grain,
00:21:44what part of this went for export, how much 10, 15,
00:21:4820?
00:22:20as they say, worth its weight in gold, in fact, that is, it is a convertible
00:22:23asset, wheat, well, you see,
00:22:26it's also very interesting that constant
00:22:29shifts are happening, if we talk about tsarist Russia, as
00:22:33you said, then rye was in the first place,
00:22:35not wheat, and rye bread was
00:22:39more popular, now where in Russia, yes, we are talking about
00:22:43Russia, yes, but gradually, now,
00:22:46for example, rye sowings are gradually decreasing, it is no longer as
00:22:50popular as wheat, wheat is in the first place now, unequivocally,
00:22:54if we talk about exports, yes, and then
00:22:57barley, barley is also important, as an important
00:23:01crop, but rather it is not for nutrition, but for
00:23:05animal feed, there is barley, uh-huh, there is
00:23:08a very strict division in oil, there is WTI - light
00:23:12oil, light grades, there is Arabian oil, there is
00:23:15a world benchmark grade, Brent, there is heavy oil, from which
00:23:18fuel oil is produced, from which kerosene is produced,
00:23:21aviation, diesel fuel, is there
00:23:24a similar division in wheat, and what is Russia's place in
00:23:28this division from the point of view of production, what do we grow? We mainly
00:23:32grow so-called
00:23:35soft wheat, is that good or bad? We grow what
00:23:39is in demand for our products, not what grows,
00:23:43you see, the thing is, for example, there is, there is so-called hard
00:23:47wheat, yes, in addition to soft wheat, if there is such a difference? What is the difference?
00:23:50Hard wheat is mainly used for
00:23:54pasta products, that is, it does not boil down as much, let's say, that
00:23:58is, is it easier to grow or is it harder to grow, harder
00:24:01to grow, yes, soft, well, soft wheat also
00:24:04differs, there are very different varieties, there are,
00:24:08there are so-called strong varieties, which are, which are
00:24:12more like, how to say, in terms of
00:24:14high quality,
00:24:18well, but what is currently...
00:24:20demanded on the market is not always high-quality grain,
00:24:24specially even I talked to traders and I personally
00:24:27discussed this topic with other colleagues,
00:24:31why, for example, do we currently have a lot of fourth
00:24:34grade, we sell fourth grade wheat, not third or
00:24:38second, the answer is very simple, the higher the number, the lower
00:24:42the grade, the lower the quality, yes, yes,
00:24:45that is, first grade, second grade is very little, third, fourth
00:24:48grade, fifth grade. also exists, and what is your answer?
00:24:51The answer is that it is in demand, that is
00:24:55the first thing, and the second, it is effective in terms of the ratio of costs
00:24:58and price, the demand is absolutely market-driven, market for soft
00:25:02wheat, but also of sufficiently high quality, but also for soft
00:25:06wheat of the fourth and a little bit of the third, and it is already
00:25:09naturally used as a food product, that is, bread is produced from it, as a food
00:25:13product, yes, bread is used, yes, you see, baking has also
00:25:16changed, there are enhancers.
00:25:20Enhancers of what, tell me a little bit about taste enhancers, there are
00:25:24enhancers for the dough to
00:25:27rise, for everything else, so there are
00:25:30various, various, so to speak, additives that are used
00:25:34for when making bread. How much
00:25:37Asia and the Far East, well, these Asian countries, primarily,
00:25:40probably not even China, but let's say,
00:25:43Indonesia, Vietnam, maybe South Korea, how much are they
00:25:47importers or exporters? In this case,
00:25:50of grain, how much is wheat really in demand there? Well,
00:25:53our main buyers of our
00:25:56grain, yes, are traditionally Egypt, Turkey,
00:25:59China, this trio, I would name
00:26:03these countries as the main buyers of our
00:26:07and who else besides China in Asia? In Asia,
00:26:10well, you know, there are already other neighboring countries, like
00:26:14Vietnam, for example, but it's all smaller there, with Vietnam it's
00:26:18developing, there are also discussions
00:26:21of this topic, to generally increase
00:26:25cooperation with Vietnam, other Asian countries
00:26:28like Thailand are increasing, this
00:26:31direction of the Global South is very relevant
00:26:35and in demand now, I think it will continue to develop
00:26:38and strengthen, well, I think that in the first place, Africa, probably, plays
00:26:42the role of a buyer of grain crops, well, Africa
00:26:45less, you know, now it is developing, yes, African
00:26:48countries are developing, but Africa less. It is an absolutely accurate
00:26:52fact that in the sixties, seventies,
00:26:55when there was not enough grain for
00:26:59themselves, the Soviet Union was forced to export wheat.
00:27:02countries of the socialist bloc, and
00:27:05developing its influence on the same Africa, on Latin
00:27:08America, using this as a tool of, well, soft,
00:27:12let's call it, although it is, well, yes, soft power, this is connected with
00:27:16the fact that indeed Russia, being
00:27:20a country that produced, provided itself with bread and
00:27:24even sold something, not something, as you said, 25%, in the Soviet
00:27:27Union the situation changed, the reason was this, now,
00:27:31how much does it play... the role of wheat export as that very
00:27:34soft power of influence, besides oil, hydrocarbons,
00:27:37yes, besides
00:27:40geopolitics, besides weapons,
00:27:44how much does wheat stand in the same row with these assets,
00:27:48let's call them such global and strategic now, well,
00:27:52you know, I personally did not evaluate it from these positions, I can only
00:27:56say that wheat is
00:27:59a very important export
00:28:02commodity for us, we always monitor both the harvest
00:28:06of wheat, we track, so to speak,
00:28:09assessments are constantly made, how much
00:28:13we will produce, produce, this year, especially, there were
00:28:17possible prospects that there might not be a very
00:28:21good harvest, and assessments were constantly made of how much
00:28:24grain we would produce, 125 million tons,
00:28:28135 million tons were produced, 140 million
00:28:31tons, right? How does a person track this, there are some rough
00:28:35parameters, for example, there's a quick winter, a cold
00:28:38winter, a snowy winter, a quick spring, can an ordinary person
00:28:42try to estimate, now there is talk about favorable
00:28:45conditions for
00:28:49growing grain crops, now there was a lot of snow, there was
00:28:53a lot of snow and the snowmelt is going normally, so
00:28:57to speak, moisture remains in the soil, this is
00:29:00important for further growth, and...
00:29:32grain-producing, well, wheat-producing regions in southern Russia,
00:29:36of course, the Krasnodar Territory, Voronezh Oblast, these are very large
00:29:39producers, yes, but in
00:29:42Siberia, for example, Novosibirsk produces about 1
00:29:45million tons of grain, which is also a lot, yes, Omsk Oblast
00:29:49produces quite a lot, Tyumen Oblast also produces quite a lot,
00:29:53several, up to several million tons of grain are collected, Altai
00:29:57Krai also collects, maybe the yield is not very
00:30:00high, but the scale. The ideas are quite large, and
00:30:04there are about millions and millions
00:30:07of tons collected, and Siberia also produces quite
00:30:11large grain harvests,
00:30:14if you take, say, the last, well, 10
00:30:18years, yes, from the point of view of weather conditions, as we say,
00:30:21favorable for the harvest, unfavorable for
00:30:24the harvest, how many years were unfavorable for the harvest,
00:30:28well, in recent years I think we have been relatively lucky, with
00:30:32the weather. with the weather, yes, by the way, the last few years - this is
00:30:35four, the last few years - this can be said from the twentieth year, from
00:30:39the twentieth year, if you look at
00:30:42the chains of influence of the initial
00:30:45price of wheat on bread, pasta, of course, on
00:30:48flour too, here, probably, well, no, probably a direct
00:30:52path, on everything else
00:30:55on the same meat, on
00:30:58poultry, on...