MOSCOW, RUSSIA — With wheat harvest approaching in Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter has raised its forecast for the 2020-21 crop, Reuters reported.

Russia’s agriculture ministry raised its forecast for the 2020-21 grain crop last week to 75 million tonnes, up from the estimated 73.6 million tonnes in 2019-20.

Under pressure from the approaching new crop and lower global benchmarks, Russian wheat export prices fell last week, according to Reuters.

Russia, which competes primarily with the European Union and Ukraine to supply the African and Middle East markets, expects harvest to begin in the next two weeks.

“It looks like Russian traders are getting more confident about the new crop,” the SovEcon consultancy told Reuters.

Russian wheat with 12.5% protein loaded from Black Sea ports was at $202 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of last week, down $3 from the previous week, SovEcon said.

Another consultancy, IKAR, pegged wheat for supply in August at $199 a tonne, down $7 from the previous week.