Russia's Preliminary 2024 Grain Harvest Totals 128 Million Tonnes, the Fifth-Best Result in History
The preliminary grain harvest in Russia for 2024 totaled 128 million tonnes, Oksana Lut said at the All-Russian Agronomic Meeting, PRIME reported on January 29, 2025. The final data for the year were expected at around 130 million tonnes: the preliminary figure, in other words, could still be revised upward as the year's statistics are completed.
The 2024 season was not an easy one: frosts, drought and rain during the harvest campaign. Even so, the result described at the meeting is the fifth in the country's history. The preliminary 128 million tonnes is the figure with which the farm sector enters the final stage of the year's tally, and Rosstat's first data already show how the clean-weight and bunker-weight readings of the same harvest relate to each other.
The preliminary result: 128 million tonnes and a fifth place in history
The headline figure of the preliminary tally is 128 million tonnes of grain harvested in 2024. Oksana Lut presented it at the All-Russian Agronomic Meeting — a venue where the season's results are traditionally summed up and the guidelines for the next field campaigns are set. The final data, she said, were expected at around 130 million tonnes: the gap between the preliminary and the final figure is the usual working distance of harvest statistics, closed as regional data are refined.
- preliminary grain harvest for 2024 — 128 million tonnes;
- final data expected at around 130 million tonnes;
- the result is described as the fifth in history;
- the season's weather factors — frosts, drought and rain during the harvest.
The list of weather trials matters for understanding the price of the result. Frosts hit part of the crops early in the season, drought cut the yield potential in a number of regions, and rain during the harvest complicated both the fieldwork and the quality of the grain brought in. Against that background the fifth result in history reads less like a record and more like a demonstration of resilience: the sector lost part of the potential crop but kept the volume at a historically high level.
Rosstat's first data: clean weight and bunker weight
Rosstat's first data for December 2024 provide the second, statistical view of the harvest. According to them, the country harvested 124.96 million tonnes of grain in clean weight and 130.4 million tonnes in bunker weight. The two figures describe the same harvest in two different measurement conventions and therefore do not contradict each other.
Why two readings are needed
Bunker weight is grain as it leaves the combine's bunker: with the moisture and impurities that post-harvest processing will later remove. Clean weight is the weight of grain after drying and cleaning — the weight in which it is accepted for storage and counted in balances. The difference between the two December readings is about 5.4 million tonnes: that is the moisture and impurities removed in processing.
- bunker weight — the crop as it came from the combine's bunker, including moisture and impurities;
- clean weight — grain after drying and cleaning, in the form accepted for storage;
- Rosstat's December data: 124.96 million tonnes in clean weight and 130.4 million tonnes in bunker weight.
The statistical pair is also useful to compare with the preliminary estimate: the preliminary 128 million tonnes sits between Rosstat's clean-weight and bunker-weight readings. The comparison shows how much the answer to the question of the harvest's size depends on the measurement convention chosen — and why the preliminary tally and the statistical tally should be read side by side rather than as competing numbers.
From the preliminary figure to the final one
The path from 128 million to around 130 million tonnes is the normal route of annual harvest statistics: operational regional data are first summed into a preliminary tally and then refined as Rosstat's final forms are completed. For the 2024 harvest this refinement was expected to go upward, with the final data at around 130 million tonnes. For the grain balance of the current season this means the year's resource will ultimately be assessed somewhat higher than the figure that made headlines at the end of January.
The fifth place in history also sets the reference point for comparisons: only four seasons sit above it in the country's statistics. The 2024 harvest, even in its preliminary version, therefore enters the top five harvests in Russia's history — a result achieved in a year of frosts, drought and rain during the harvest campaign.
Conclusion
Russia's preliminary grain harvest for 2024 is 128 million tonnes — the fifth figure in the country's history, achieved in a season of frosts, drought and rain during the harvest. The final data were expected at around 130 million tonnes, and Rosstat's first December data already give the statistical contour of the crop: 124.96 million tonnes in clean weight and 130.4 million tonnes in bunker weight. Between the preliminary tally and the final statistics lies the usual work of refining regional data — and it will show where, in the range from 128 to around 130 million tonnes, the year's final figure settles.
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