As Russia's upper chamber of parliament today approves the country's membership of the World Trade Organization, a study finds that developing country farm exports are set to grow substantially in months ahead – with increased consumer demand and lower import duties driving the trend. Expanded access to Russia's beef, pork and sugar markets could boost exports from Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, say Sergey Kiselev and Roman Romashkin in a research paper for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD). Major importers of Russia's wheat exports such as Egypt and Turkey could also gain as Russia agrees to control export restrictions and prohibitions, the study finds – along with barley importers such as Iran, Libya and Saudi Arabia. “Russia's growing agricultural and food markets are attractive both for domestic producers and to suppliers from abroad”, Kiselev said. “For several commodity groups, Russia's market openings will substantially improve trade”. Argentina, Chile and South Africa could benefit from substantially lower import duties on their wine exports, say the authors, and Turkey and Chile could gain as Russia halves its import tariffs on grapes. Although developing countries are the main suppliers of bananas, citrus fruit, coffee and tea, Russia's current low tariffs mean that exporters of these products will not see major gains.