SIMFEROPOL, June 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Grain producers in Crimea will re-orient their exports in response to EU sanctions against Crimean goods, Nikolai Polyushkin, the Crimean minister of food and agrarian policy, said on Wednesday.

“Europe has declared a boycott on us. It has blocked grain deliveries from Crimea to the European Union as of June 25,” Polyushkin said.

Crimea will be oriented at operators in Russia and the Russian grain market. Besides, Crimean agricultural products are in great demand in the Middle East and Northern Africa, Polyushkin went on to say.

The gross grain harvest, the Crimean ministers says, was forecast at 1.1 million tonnes this year, including about 400,000 tonnes of barley and 600,000 - 650,000 tonnes of wheat.

Commenting on EU ban on Crimean wines, Polyushkin said that Crimean wine-makers will easily re-orient their exports from European countries to Russia. The more so, that the bulk of Crimean wine export has always went to Russia and Southeast Asia rather than Europe. No official statistics on Crimean wine exports was published in 2013. Wine accounted for about one percent (6.6 million dollars) of Crimean exports in January-May 2013.