UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 14, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region's Agriculture & Food Minister Mikhail Kopytov feels the local farmers won't be able to recover this year's harvest in its entirety.

'This year's weather conditions make it difficult to collect all of our potatoes properly. The harvesting tempo is lower than the average of many year since it keeps raining all the time and the soil is too wet. Tractors can barely enter the fields, the potatoes are all covered in soil. Our farmers use every opportunity for field work, with all the vehicles ready. We still hope to gather all the harvest in time and with minimum losses,' Sverdlovsk Region Government's website quotes Kopytov as saying.

According to the Minister, 40% of this year's yield have already been harvested, which includes 15.5% of potatoes and 16% (283 hectares, or 5,700,000 kg) of field vegetables. This year's yield capacity stands at 202.3 metric centners per hectare, which exceeds last year's figures by 5.6%.

However, the rainy summer will still have its negative impact on the final figures.