The export duty on grain can push Russian farmers to increase the acreage of niche crops - soybeans, peas, industrial hemp, coriander or mustard. These crops are often more cost effective.
In recent years, farmers in the European part of Russia have seriously diversified their crops at the expense of soybeans. This year, soybean crops have grown in the Central District by 17%, to 1,3 million hectares. Throughout the country, the share of soybeans, according to Rosstat, in 2021 accounted for almost 3,8% in the structure of crops of all crops.
In 2021, farmers will almost certainly be able to obtain high profitability from peas. In Canada, one of the main exporting countries of peas, drought and poor harvests, and Russian agricultural producers in 2021 sowed, according to Rosstat, 9% more areas than a year earlier - only 1,4 million hectares. Now peas occupy 1,8% of the crop structure
Recently, an increasingly promising crop is considered to be industrial hemp, whose share in crops is still quite negligible, about 0,01%, but the announced projects for its deep processing (for example, for $ 2 billion in the Kurgan region) have drawn attention to it. In 2021, an area of 13,2 thousand hectares was sown for this crop, which is 23% more than last year.
Crops of coriander in 2020 increased by more than 30%, to 68 thousand hectares. In 2021, there was a good environment for the export of coriander: in January-July, its supplies abroad increased by more than 50%, exceeding 5 thousand tons. In general, the share of coriander in all crops is very small - less than 0,1%. It is more likely that small agricultural enterprises and farms can increase the sowing of this crop to diversify crop rotation.