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Russia Monday began grain intervention purchases, the agriculture ministry said. Trading is being carried out by state-owned United Grain Company. The first trading session resulted in the purchase of 5,400 metric tons of wheat from a farmer at RUB3,300 ($113.6) a ton, which is considered to be a good market price, the ministry said.

During January-September of 2009, enterprises of the chemical industry of Ukraine decreased production volumes of nitrogenous and mineral fertilizers by 24.4% compared to the same period of the previous year – to 1.6 mln tonnes, declared the State Committee of Statistics of Ukraine.

According to the world experts, the volumes of the world trading with grains on the world market will possibly lower by 11% due to the essential surplus of supply over demand. High harvest of grains in the countries of the North Africa and the Middle East also assisted to the development of the situation. However, the world market still expects for the results of wheat harvests in the countries of the Southern Hemisphere, including grain quality in Australia, reduction of grain production volumes in Argentina, due to the decrease of sowing areas and yield indices. And what will Kazakhstan initiate in order to promote own grains on the world market?

The International Grains Council Thursday revised world grain production for 2009-10 to 1.76 billion metric tons, up slightly from the September estimate of 1.75 billion tons, mainly due to the larger-than-expected U.S. corn crop.