Cereal import volume in Russia 2000/2001-2021/2022

In crop year 2022/2023, Russia's cereal imports were forecast at 0.63 million metric tons. The import volume of that commodity fluctuated over the past decade. Over the observed period, the highest cereal imports were recorded at over 2.7 million metric tons in marketing year 2000/2001.

What cereals does Russia import and from where?

The most imported cereals in Russia were rice, corn, rye and wheat. Russian wheat and meslin imports neared 190 thousand metric tons in 2020. Imports of grains from Kazakhstan accounted for roughly one third of the total tonnage in the first quarter of that year. Thus, that country was the leading origin of grain imports in Russia.

Cereal import substitution in Russia

Russian introduced a food embargo from the European Union, the United States as well as other Western countries in 2014. The country followed the import substitution path by increasing financial support to the agricultural sector and became the global leader in wheat exports, overtaking the U.S. and Canada. In 2018, the value of Russian cereal and grain legume imports was measured at 330 million U.S. dollars. That represented only 1.1 percent of the total food and agricultural import volume in the country in that year.