Food-Grade Wheat Makes Up 78% of Russia's 2026 Harvest, Quality Monitoring Shows
The first nationwide wheat quality monitoring of the season puts food-grade wheat at 78% of Russia's 2026 crop, split between 31% class 3 and 47% class 4, with 22% below food specification. Siberian grain leads on quality, with weighted average gluten of 24.5%. Importers including Turkey, China and Kazakhstan have tightened pesticide residue screening requirements.
Food-quality wheat accounts for 78% of Russia's 2026 grain harvest, according to the first results of this season's nationwide wheat quality monitoring, reported by Interfax on 11 September.
The data were presented by Maria Shostak, director of the Altai branch of the Centre for Assessment of Safety and Quality of Agro-Industrial Complex Products (TsOK APK) in Barnaul, an institution subordinate to the agricultural safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor. She was speaking at the Grain of Siberia forum, held in Barnaul on Friday for the fifth time.
Class 4 dominates the milling pool
"The first data from wheat quality monitoring across Russia: 31% is third-class wheat, with high gluten, decent test weight, excellent vitreousness. 47% is fourth-class wheat, 22% is grain of non-food quality," Shostak said, as quoted by Interfax. Third and fourth class together produce the 78% food-grade share.
The balance is weighted towards the lower milling grade: at 47%, class 4 is half again as large as class 3 at 31%. Class 3 is the grade Shostak associated with high gluten, decent test weight and excellent vitreousness — the characteristics millers pay a premium for. The remaining 22% falls outside food specifications. Shostak described the figures as the first monitoring readings of the season, which means the ratio can still shift as more regions are sampled.
Siberia sets the quality benchmark
Regional results diverge sharply. Shostak singled out Siberia, and Altai Krai in particular, for the strength of this year's crop.
- Altai Krai ranks first in Siberia for grain quality, with a substantially larger share of class 1-4 wheat than before.
- In Western Kulunda, 93% of the wheat is third class — figures Shostak called unique.
- The weighted average gluten content of Siberian grain is 24.5%, a level not recorded anywhere else in Russia as of the current monitoring date.
- Grain in the Urals is of decent quality, while southern and central regions show average indicators.
Importers raise the pesticide threshold
Several wheat importers have recently tightened requirements for imported grain, in particular the so-called pesticide threshold — the number of pesticide compounds whose residues must be tested for before a consignment can be shipped to a given market. Turkey requires screening for 255 pesticides, China for 230 and Kazakhstan for 135, according to Shostak. The thresholds differ by destination, so a lot cleared for one market is not automatically compliant with another. Exporters should check the pesticide threshold and quality characteristics before assembling export consignments, she said.
Counting mycotoxin limits and weed-seed tolerances, China imposes the largest number of phytosanitary barriers of any destination, Shostak said. Even so, she sees room to expand Russian shipments of grain and grain products to the Chinese market.
Demand beyond bulk wheat
China is actively looking at Russian barley, oats and peas, while flax and wheat flour are also of interest, Shostak said. She did not rule out that shipments of Altai bran to the Chinese market could begin in the near future, which would extend the region's export list beyond grain into processing by-products.
Other destinations take a different mix. Lentils, soybeans and pea, buckwheat and semolina groats are shipped to Kazakhstan, while Iran and Afghanistan maintain traditional demand for Altai lentils and oat flakes. The Grain of Siberia forum brought together about 170 participants from Russian regions, Kazakhstan and South Korea.
