ProZerno sees smaller Russian groat crops in 2026: buckwheat at 794,000 t, rice at 833,000 t
Russian consultancy ProZerno expects the 2026 buckwheat crop at 794,000 tonnes, rice at 833,000 tonnes and millet at 240,000 tonnes, all below 2025 levels. Smaller planted area is the main reason, with yields also lower for every crop except millet. Company head Vladimir Petrichenko says the market has not yet priced the shortfall in, as harvesting continues and prices fall.
Russia will harvest less buckwheat, rice and millet in 2026 than it did a year earlier, according to estimates from the consultancy ProZerno cited by Interfax. A contraction in planted area is the main driver, compounded by lower yields for every crop in the group except millet. The forecast covers the three crops that supply most of Russia's domestic groat processing, and all three are moving in the same direction in the same season.
Three crops, three double-digit declines
ProZerno puts this year's buckwheat crop at 794,000 tonnes, against 926,000 tonnes in 2025. Rice is forecast at 833,000 tonnes versus 1.235 million tonnes a year earlier, and millet at 240,000 tonnes versus 352,000 tonnes, according to figures reported by finance.mail.ru and altapress.ru.
- Buckwheat: 794,000 tonnes in 2026 against 926,000 tonnes in 2025, a decline of about 14%.
- Rice: 833,000 tonnes against 1.235 million tonnes, down roughly 33% and the largest loss in absolute terms at more than 400,000 tonnes.
- Millet: 240,000 tonnes against 352,000 tonnes, about 32% lower.
Rice is the heaviest single loss for the domestic balance, since Russian rice is grown on a narrow irrigated area and processed almost entirely for the home market. Buckwheat is the crop with the widest public price visibility, because it feeds directly into retail packaged groats.
Sown area did most of the damage
Buckwheat occupied 708,000 hectares this year against 751,000 hectares in 2025. Rice area fell to 146,000 hectares from 201,000 hectares, and millet to 160,000 hectares from 244,000 hectares. In relative terms that is a cut of about 6% for buckwheat, 27% for rice and 34% for millet.
ProZerno chief executive Vladimir Petrichenko linked the expected decline directly to the smaller area, Interfax reported. Yields were also below last year's for every crop except millet. The arithmetic shows the difference clearly: buckwheat lost far more output than area, so yield per hectare worked against growers, while millet output fell by less than its planted area, implying a better yield than in 2025.
Prices are still falling
Petrichenko said the smaller harvest is not yet visible in the market. “However, the fact that the groat crop this year will be lower than last year's is something the market is not yet taking into account. Harvesting is continuing, prices are falling,” he said in comments reported by finance.mail.ru and altapress.ru.
That leaves a gap between the physical balance and current quotations. Harvest-time selling pressure is still setting the tone, which favours processors and packers buying on the spot market and penalises growers selling straight off the combine. For buyers planning 2027 requirements, the pricing signal available now does not reflect the supply position ProZerno describes.
A weaker export season in the background
The groat forecast lands against a broader slowdown in Russian grain trade. On 23 September it was reported that grain exports in the first quarter of the 2026/27 season will fall by a factor of 1.6 to 8.5 million tonnes, with wheat shipments down to 4.8 million tonnes, maize to 600,000 tonnes and barley to 800,000 tonnes.
With capacity halted at Novorossiysk, Iran became the largest destination with a 17.2% share of volumes, while Turkey's share shrank to 2%. Buckwheat, rice and millet are not export commodities on the scale of Russian wheat, but weaker overall shipments and softer farmgate prices shape the same cash environment that determines how much area these crops get in the next sowing campaign.
