Medvedev announced the highest grain harvest in the history of the Russian Federation at the end of 2016

"We have grown a huge harvest this year - 118 million tons. This is the highest harvest in the history of modern Russia," he said. According to him, this creates an opportunity to solve internal tasks - to develop animal husbandry, to develop a feed base, and at the same time to increase export potential, gain a foothold in foreign markets.

"And this is also very important, bearing in mind the need for the inflow of foreign currency, and just our export positions," he said.

Medvedev said that "recently, literally over the past few years, taking into account, however, the decisions we made ten years ago, we managed to achieve an increase in agriculture of 3% per year." "And this is in the context of a generally downward trend in the economy," he added. In 2015, Russia harvested 104.8 million tons of grain.