The predicted grain harvest for Russia this year has once again been revised upwards. In spring, after seeing how the winter crops had done, forecasters promised a grain harvest of 73-74 million tons, less than last year's near record of 85 million tons but still not bad considering Russia's annual grain needs come to 70-75 million tons.

The biggest grain producing regions in the North Caucasus then suffered a drought in June and floods in July, after which it looked as though the harvest would be less than expected, as has been the case in the past. But when the harvest began in the south, reports came in that the total would match last year's 85 million tons.

This meant there would be surplus grain, and the government began talking about the question of grain exports for the first time in 30 years. As the harvest continued in the north and new figures came in, the forecast was revised upwards to 93-94 million tons.

At a recent government meeting, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov announced that the crisis in agriculture had now been overcome. This is a sensation: All through the last decade, voices have been raised about this rural crisis, which in fact has lasted 70 years. Now, it seems, the country is over it. Grain production is rising, as are harvests of other crops. Livestock production is also on the increase, while agricultural output has grown in general over the last three years after falling for more than a decade. Perhaps Kasyanov is right.

Unfortunately, the facts don't back up this optimistic announcement. The crisis has changed form and is no longer as acute as it was in the early 1990s when there was a straight-out shortage of domestically produced food, and the country had to resort to imports. Today, the country is even producing too much grain, and the biggest problem now is how to find export markets quickly. But the crisis has not been overcome and manifests itself not just in surplus grain production.

For a start, despite two years of good harvests, there's no guarantee that they won't fail in the future. Russia's agriculture sector, especially grain production, is still heavily dependent on weather conditions and suffers from a lack of fertilizers and good farming equipment. Rural infrastructure remains underdeveloped; there are not enough grain silos or decent roads. Wages in agriculture are the lowest in any sector of the economy: almost three times lower than the average wage. In June 2002, they amounted to $55 a month at the current exchange rate.

But two good years and a grain surplus of at least 30 million tons have given the sector a confidence boost, and point the way forward.

It shouldn't be forgotten that as Russia underwent a general recession in the early 1990s, livestock production tumbled to particularly low levels. Livestock production has begun rising again in recent years, but its growth is slow and still far from earlier levels. In 2000, meat and poultry production came to just 48 percent of what it was in 1991, the last year of the planned socialist economy. Milk production was 62 percent of the Soviet-era figure, and egg production came to 72 percent.

The liberalization of foreign trade meant that the country began importing agricultural products to make up for its own production shortfalls. During the chaotic period when the market economy was emerging and collective farms were transforming themselves into joint stock companies, agricultural imports rose to levels that went beyond what was economically reasonable. Poultry imports, for example, exceeded Russian poultry production.

According to Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev, by importing meat and milk Russia is essentially importing 10-11 million tons of grain per year because that's the amount of additional grain Russia would need for animal feed if it were to replace the imported milk and meat with its own product. These import practices were reasonable enough when the country didn't have enough grain of its own, but now that it has surplus grain and at the same time lacks the transport infrastructure needed to organize grain exports, it would make sense to reduce meat and dairy imports and replace them with Russian products.

Kasyanov was hasty in announcing the end of the crisis in agriculture. There is still a long way to go before the country really puts the crisis behind it, even though today's difficulties are certainly not the same as they were back in 1991, when Russia faced the specter of hunger.