Russia becomes world's leading wheat exporter

 Russia has become the world's leader in the export of wheat, surpassing the United States and Canada, Russian Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev said Thursday.

"Russia supplies about 25 million tons of wheat on the external market by the end of the agricultural 2016 year. We became the world's leading wheat exporter, surpassing the United States and Canada," Tkachev was quoted as saying by Russian news agency TASS.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Russia last year achieved record levels in the harvest of corn (13.2 million tons), rice (1.1 million tons), soybeans (2.7 million tons) and buckwheat (900,000 tons). The total grain harvest amounted to 104.8 million tons.