Eastern Europe: Winter has been fairly mild so far, and crop prospects are much better than a year ago. The official barley 2003 crop estimate of Russia is 17.946 million tonnes, a huge increase from earlier estimates versus 15.5 million tonnes by USDA/IGC.

Export forecasts for the crop year are 3.5 million tonnes for Russia and 1.15 million tonnes for the Ukraine. Earlier estimates that Russia will import 400,000 tonnes of malting barley have become doubtful in view of the very firm EU markets and Euro currency.

20 February, 2004