2001 Harvest Enables Russia To Export Grain

Owing to the bumper harvest of 2001 Russia has gained potential for exporting grain. Russian Agrarian Party leader Mikhail Lapshin gave this opinion at a news conference in Moscow today. According to preliminary reports, grain-growers harvested and put into grain tanks about 93 million tons of grain. Accordingly, Russia has fully fulfilled its needs for food grain, which opens new opportunities for the agrarian industry, Lapshin pointed out. At the same time, in his view, the state should set a barrier to operations by 'speculative traders,' who purchase grain from farmers for trifling sums. "Only a producer of grain is entitled to sell it," Lapshin concluded.