Russian Agriculture News

while browsing for some economic news, I stumbled upon this one:

CHINA BUILDS 100,000-COW DAIRY FARM

CHINA is building the biggest dairy farm in the world with 100,000 cows to supply Russia.

The enormous farm at Mudanjiang City in north-east China will have 60,000 more cows than the current biggest dairy farm, also in China.

Russia wants the milk as it is boycotting EU countries’ dairy exports after Brussels imposed economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

The farm is 50 times bigger than the biggest dairy farm in the UK – which has around 2000 cows – and three times bigger than the largest in the US, with 30,000 cows.

China’s Zhongding Dairy Farming and Russia’s Severny companies are behind the $241 million megadairy project.

Feed for the housed cows will be grown on 100,000ha, most of it in Russia.

Earlier this year, the EU extended economic sanctions because of Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

In response, Russia prolonged its ban on foods from the EU, US, Australia, Norway and Canada, including milk products, until August next year.

Before the Russian ban, the EU exported about 300,000 tonnes of cheese – about 25 per cent of its production – to Russia annually.

Mansel Raymond, chairman of Copa-Cogeca, the umbrella organisation for European farmers, said the ban and the Chino-Russian dairy venture sent a worrying signal to Europe’s dairy farmers.

https://edairynews.com/en/china-builds-100000-cow-dairy-farm-43753/

Anyways, what made me wonder is why Russia agreed to pursue this kind of project, (buying dairy products from a farm in China) when they are in the process of import substitution, I think it would have been a better idea to invest in building a dairy farm inside Russia if the intended market for its products is Russian consumers. Is Russia's climate really that harsh for growing cows?

PhSt wrote:while browsing for some economic news, I stumbled upon this one:

CHINA BUILDS 100,000-COW DAIRY FARM

CHINA is building the biggest dairy farm in the world with 100,000 cows to supply Russia.

The enormous farm at Mudanjiang City in north-east China will have 60,000 more cows than the current biggest dairy farm, also in China.

Russia wants the milk as it is boycotting EU countries’ dairy exports after Brussels imposed economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

The farm is 50 times bigger than the biggest dairy farm in the UK – which has around 2000 cows – and three times bigger than the largest in the US, with 30,000 cows.

China’s Zhongding Dairy Farming and Russia’s Severny companies are behind the $241 million megadairy project.

Feed for the housed cows will be grown on 100,000ha, most of it in Russia.

Earlier this year, the EU extended economic sanctions because of Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

In response, Russia prolonged its ban on foods from the EU, US, Australia, Norway and Canada, including milk products, until August next year.

Before the Russian ban, the EU exported about 300,000 tonnes of cheese – about 25 per cent of its production – to Russia annually.

Mansel Raymond, chairman of Copa-Cogeca, the umbrella organisation for European farmers, said the ban and the Chino-Russian dairy venture sent a worrying signal to Europe’s dairy farmers.

https://edairynews.com/en/china-builds-100000-cow-dairy-farm-43753/

Anyways, what made me wonder is why Russia agreed to pursue this kind of project, (buying dairy products from a farm in China) when they are in the process of import substitution, I think it would have been a better idea to invest in building a dairy farm inside Russia if the intended market for its products is Russian consumers. Is Russia's climate really that harsh for growing cows?

First of all, nobody grows cows

Jokes aside, Russia is very much doing import substitution and achieved great success in the agriculture sector.
However, they are not there yet when it comes to beef and dairy. Russia still imports lots of milk and milk products as of today.
New dairy farms are coming up across the country almost on a daily basis, it is just a matter of time.

One of the reason why Russia achieved it's self sufficiency goals with porc and poultry quickly Is because these animals are very prolific while cattle is not.
It will take some time.

This is not a short term project, it takes a lot of milk to amortise that kind of investment. Also Russia needs to buy stuff off China as well as sell stuff to them.

This is about Russia and China against the World and a big message to the Aussies as well as the EU.

5 crab fishing vessels laid down in Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/132604/

8 crab fishing vessels laid down in Nahodka

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/133085/

Did Russians decide to start exclusively eating crabs?

Crab fishing vessel has been laid down in Petrozavodsk

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/133203/

When was last time you had crab?

Let me tell you, I would take crab 100% over lobster. Lobster is tasteless to me while crab is sweet. Add garlic butter and it's amazing. If it was more available here and cheaper, I would eat it every day.

miketheterrible wrote:When was last time you had crab?

Let me tell you, I would take crab 100% over lobster...

Crab never. Lobster neither. This is Serbia, only way to get arthropods here is to go to a very fancy restaurant or run into a bag of frozen sea food at the supermarket which might be arthropods but nobody can tell for sure.

I had shrimp once ages ago.

I just find is strange how Russia has had crab fishing vessel building boom over last couple of weeks...

Demand is high. It's a delicacy nearly everywhere outside of Muslim and African regions. Hell, when crab fest was going on here, I had the All you can eat. I think I may have brought an extinction of at least one kind of crab.

Plus, blue crabs blood are used for medical use. So catching them is a huge payoff.

But crab to eat is so damn good.

I know Serbia is landlocked so it must be expensive as shit

Not really a fan of sea food, but I believe in response to the US rolling back agreements and imposing sanctions that up until recently Russia has been respecting a sea border between Russia and America... and now they are not.

There is an American TV show about crab fishing off alaska... I found it to be exceedingly boring so I haven't watched it but recently there have been adverts talking about serious competition from Russia... the boogeyman of American TV and movies... so I suspect they have extended their fishing areas beyond what they used to fish... sea food sells well and is seriously in demand in Russia and Asia... even in New Zealand paua and pippies and scalops and oysters and other shell fish and crab and lobster are popular...

First shrimp incubator in Europe has been opened in Crimea

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/133921/




Under Soviets/Ukrainians it was rice... in dry climate!!!

Now they do seafood with sweet profit margins (unlike rice)

The West has grossly miscalculated in the estimates of the Russian harvest

Prices for Russian grain are breaking new records. By the end of October, the cost of one ton of wheat reached 15 thousand rubles, barley - up to 11.27 thousand, corn - up to 13.3 thousand rubles. Importers are already asking prices for the marketing year 2021/2022. There is a high probability that wheat from Russia will continue to rise in price. What are the reasons to believe so?

Phenomenal prices for Russian wheat are determined by a combination of several factors:

Firstly , frightened by the lock down due to the coronavirus pandemic, many states have increased food imports to ensure their own national security, while producers, on the contrary, have reduced, keeping stocks for themselves for a rainy day. In the summer everyone seemed to relax a little and threw off their masks, but now the "quarantine nuts" have begun to tighten again. The situation is aggravated by the ongoing election campaign in the United States, the results of which will determine in which direction the policy of "hegemon" will unfold . If the parties turn to violence during the struggle for power, this will negatively affect the entire global economy .

Secondly Climate change has had a major impact on this year's harvest. Due to the drought, many of the leading agrarian powers lost their harvest. It got to the point that, for example, France ceded a significant share of its traditional Algerian grain market to Russia. Experts also expected big problems in the Black Sea region for Russia and neighboring Ukraine. It was suggested that Moscow and Kiev in 2020 will not receive about 30% of the planned volumes. For comparison, in 2019 Nezalezhnaya harvested 29.2 million tons of wheat, and this was expected to be no more than 20 million. The result was better - 25.1 million tons. For our country, some foreign analysts “guessed” the gross grain harvest at the level of 73 to 75 million tons, but they were very mistaken, since domestic farmers collected more than 120 million tons.

Such negative forecasts also have their positive side: the demand for food is growing, and with it the price. However, it would be extremely rash to ignore the climatic factor. Winters become abnormally warm and snowless, and the summer season becomes hot and dry. We cannot fundamentally change anything, so a high harvest in the foreseeable future can become a kind of lottery, no matter how lucky.

Thirdly, China with its 1.5 billion population can have a major impact on the grain market. Today, China is the world's second largest consumer of corn after Mexico. She imports it from the USA, Argentina, Brazil and Ukraine. Basically, this type of grain is used in China for the needs of animal husbandry, but drought and storms have caused great damage to their own crops. As a result, Beijing decided to increase the quota for duty-free corn imports from 7.2 million tons to 20 million, that is, almost three times.

This will have dramatic consequences for the grain market. There are well-founded fears that now producers will be interested in growing this particular crop at the expense of the rest. Corn may push wheat, which will lead to further increases in prices for it.

franco wrote:...Secondly Climate change has had a major impact on this year's harvest. Due to the drought, many of the leading agrarian powers lost their harvest. It got to the point that, for example, France ceded a significant share of its traditional Algerian grain market to Russia. Experts also expected big problems in the Black Sea region for Russia and neighboring Ukraine. It was suggested that Moscow and Kiev in 2020 will not receive about 30% of the planned volumes....

Bookmark this

Last time this happened was in 2008 (in Russia mostly) and it resulted in Arab Spring couple of years later

Interesting times ahead

Also reminder for all morons who claim that Russia is "wasting time" with agriculture and should refocus on smartphones

Lessons of commies' infinite failures should never be forgotten

PapaDragon wrote:

franco wrote:...Secondly Climate change has had a major impact on this year's harvest. Due to the drought, many of the leading agrarian powers lost their harvest. It got to the point that, for example, France ceded a significant share of its traditional Algerian grain market to Russia. Experts also expected big problems in the Black Sea region for Russia and neighboring Ukraine. It was suggested that Moscow and Kiev in 2020 will not receive about 30% of the planned volumes....

Bookmark this

Last time this happened was in 2008 (in Russia mostly) and it resulted in Arab Spring couple of years later

Interesting times ahead

Also reminder for all morons who claim that Russia is "wasting time" with agriculture and should refocus on smartphones

Lessons of commies' infinite failures should never be forgotten

Especially since Russian harvest difference this year is not much different than last year's.

Note how the massive achievements of Russia in terms of grains and other food sources are treated like hohum, non-news.
This is a prime metric to evaluate progress since the Soviet period. Nothing was stopping the USSR from being this productive
in terms of farming but it could not handle it. That is in spite of having a command economy, which theoretically is superior
to any profit-grubbing opportunist system like capitalism. But humans are not designed to function without harsh incentives.

kvs wrote:Note how the massive achievements of Russia in terms of grains and other food sources are treated like hohum, non-news.
This is a prime metric to evaluate progress since the Soviet period.   Nothing was stopping the USSR from being this productive
in terms of farming but it could not handle it.   That is in spite of having a command economy, which theoretically is superior
to any profit-grubbing opportunist system like capitalism.   But humans are not designed to function without harsh incentives.

The problem was the lack of sufficient storage and processing capacity, complex logistics, and an undeveloped system for the production of chemical fertilizers. In the nineties, under the "blessed capitalism", Russia showed much worse productivity indicators.

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:Note how the massive achievements of Russia in terms of grains and other food sources are treated like hohum, non-news.
This is a prime metric to evaluate progress since the Soviet period.   Nothing was stopping the USSR from being this productive
in terms of farming but it could not handle it.   That is in spite of having a command economy, which theoretically is superior
to any profit-grubbing opportunist system like capitalism.   But humans are not designed to function without harsh incentives.

The problem was the lack of sufficient storage and processing capacity, complex logistics, and an undeveloped system for the production of chemical fertilizers. In the nineties, under the "blessed capitalism", Russia showed much worse productivity indicators.

If the USSR could have a space program it could have built some storage for grains. It is not like there was a JIT operational philosophy under
communism. And the other excuse you forgot to mention was weather. Soviet grain yields were routinely blamed on weather. Global warming
has changed some things, but has not changed Russian frosts, winds and rain storms. So the USSR had zero excuses.

As for the 1990s, how can you bring that up as a relevant baseline since Russia experienced one of the worst depressions seen in human
history which involved the GDP going down by 50% (the US GDP went down by 25% during the Great Depression) and millions of people dying
from all sorts of economics-associated causes. The USSR food production was also depressed for about 10 years after 1945.

kvs wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:Note how the massive achievements of Russia in terms of grains and other food sources are treated like hohum, non-news.
This is a prime metric to evaluate progress since the Soviet period.   Nothing was stopping the USSR from being this productive
in terms of farming but it could not handle it.   That is in spite of having a command economy, which theoretically is superior
to any profit-grubbing opportunist system like capitalism.   But humans are not designed to function without harsh incentives.

The problem was the lack of sufficient storage and processing capacity, complex logistics, and an undeveloped system for the production of chemical fertilizers. In the nineties, under the "blessed capitalism", Russia showed much worse productivity indicators.

If the USSR could have a space program it could have built some storage for grains.   It is not like there was a JIT operational philosophy under
communism.   And the other excuse you forgot to mention was weather.   Soviet grain yields were routinely blamed on weather.   Global warming
has changed some things, but has not changed Russian frosts, winds and rain storms.   So the USSR had zero excuses.

As for the 1990s, how can you bring that up as a relevant baseline since Russia experienced one of the worst depressions seen in human
history which involved the GDP going down by 50% (the US GDP went down by 25% during the Great Depression) and millions of people dying
from all sorts of economics-associated causes.    The USSR food production was also depressed for about 10 years after 1945.

I only pointed out to you the fallacy of your reasoning that the key factor in the efficiency of agriculture in Russia was the political and economic system. In reality, under socialism, agriculture in Russia functioned much more effectively than in the nineties. Do not forget that in the USSR, in addition to Russia, there were regions such as the Central Asian republics that were not economically efficient, but required a lot of resources.

There is a difference between a managed economy and a well managed economy.

The concept of supply and demand sounds great but it is ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stuff, rather than building barriers on that cliffside road to prevent cars falling off in the first place.

In the USSR plans were set and targets were set and you got by by meeting your targets and nothing more.

If some idiot got his numbers wrong and the numbers set for grain production were too high then the cheats and dodgy deals will come in to play so they still "meet" their targets.

Management comes in to it when the production target numbers are based on demand rather than realistic production capacity of the growers, but also transport and storage capacity needs to be there too otherwise all that extra grain produced rots in the fields because there was an army exercise and so the conscripts couldn't be used for the harvest this year, or some other such cockup.

In a capitalist private enterprise situation a truck company might set aside so many trucks to transport grain based on the production targets, but what if they exceed their production targets by a wide margin... the truck company is not going to have a lot of spare transport capacity... it is just too expensive to have a lot of capacity sitting idle... so they need to hire more drivers and run the trucks longer etc etc

It is not just about how much you plant and how much grows.

During the 2020 harvest season in Russia from June to October, about 350 combines under the control of the Cognitive Agro Pilot software and hardware complex harvested 720 thousand tons of grain.

Through the use of unmanned technology Cognitive Agro Pilot in this harvest season, the total scale of saving — on fuel materials, reducing the time of harvesting (number of hours) and active work of harvesters, wear and tear of equipment, extend the period of active work of technology to capital investment, the reduction of the human factor, optimizing business processes and other parameters — exceeds 500 mln rubles.

rosng.ru/post/kombayny-s-iskusstvennym-intellektom-sobrali-720-tysyach-tonn-urozhaya

youtube.com /watch?v=OrZ6VbwAUeA

Kremlin qualifies food import substitution programme as successful, following a negative report from Kommersant:
https://mundo.sputniknews.com/rusia/202012071093750377-el-kremlin-califica-de-exitoso-el-programa-de-sustitucion-de-importaciones-alimenticias/

Kiko wrote:Kremlin qualifies food import substitution programme as successful, following a negative report from Kommersant:
https://mundo.sputniknews.com/rusia/202012071093750377-el-kremlin-califica-de-exitoso-el-programa-de-sustitucion-de-importaciones-alimenticias/

Kommersant was a Boris Berezovsky property like Nezavisimaya Gazeta.   He so thoroughly corrupted the culture of these media companies
that long after he went away they are still pushing the same anti-Russian propaganda.   Just on the basis of grains alone, this "news"
from Kommersant is obvious rubbish.  

When I visited Russia over 10 years ago the grocery stores were stuffed with products and that included Russian produced cheeses.
This was before the 2014 sanctions.   The idea that import substitution would fail in Russia is for retards.   That is why Russians
do not take these reports and claims seriously.

kvs wrote:

Kiko wrote:Kremlin qualifies food import substitution programme as successful, following a negative report from Kommersant:
https://mundo.sputniknews.com/rusia/202012071093750377-el-kremlin-califica-de-exitoso-el-programa-de-sustitucion-de-importaciones-alimenticias/

Kommersant was a Boris Berezovsky property like Nezavisimaya Gazeta.   He so thoroughly corrupted the culture of these media companies
that long after he went away they are still pushing the same anti-Russian propaganda.   Just on the basis of grains alone, this "news"
from Kommersant is obvious rubbish.  

When I visited Russia over 10 years ago the grocery stores were stuffed with products and that included Russian produced cheeses.
This was before the 2014 sanctions.   The idea that import substitution would fail in Russia is for retards.   That is why Russians
do not take these reports and claims seriously.

To add to this:

"The region's farmers have harvested a record grain harvest over the past 30 years"

Agricultural workers of the Samara region this year received a record grain harvest over the past 30 years, and the export of agricultural products amounted to more than $ 300 million. In total, 2.9 million tons of grain have been harvested from the fields of the region this year. The governor of the region Dmitry Azarov told about this on the air of the program "Main theme" on the TV channel "Russia-24.Samara" and thanked the villagers for their hard work.

“Many sectors of the economy have suffered serious losses due to the pandemic. But the villagers did a great job. This year we have received a record harvest for the entire post-Soviet period. This is a great help to the region's economy during this difficult period. Export indicators of agricultural products in our region already amount to $ 300 million, ”the  Governor emphasized.

At the same time, the average yield also increased. If last year it amounted to 17.7 centners per hectare, then this year - 26 centners / ha. According to the head of the region, the livestock breeders did not fail. “We all know about the difficult situation in pig farming. In spite of everything, the production of livestock and poultry in live weight this year increased by almost 4%. We have increased the number of cattle, increased milk yields by 7.5%, ”  - said the Governor.

Such notable achievements were achieved thanks to the support of the federal center, systematic work of the regional government, implementation of state and regional support programs. Significant funds are currently being allocated for the development of the industry. Dmitry Azarov noted that this year agricultural enterprises have purchased a total of 1568 units of new modern equipment. “Of these, 160 are grain and 11 forage harvesters, 327 tractors, 1070 units of seeding and tillage machinery and other equipment. This is what agriculture is like today - innovative, developed, technological,  ”the Head of the region emphasized.

Dmitry Azarov also noted that today all conditions are being created for the development of rural areas. “Our villages are being transformed, new medical institutions are being built, houses of culture are being renovated, libraries are being updated and much more. All this is the work of our villagers. Low bow to you! Thank you for the bread, salt, meat and milk on the tables of the residents of our region, ”the  Governor of the Samara Region addressed with words of gratitude to the villagers.

https://www.samregion.ru/press_center/news/dmitrij-azarov-rekordnyj-urozhaj-zerna-za-poslednie-30-let-sobrali-agrarii-regiona/

This year Russia will allocate $ 10M to the UN's World Food Programme. Among the beneficiaries are Libya, Nicaragua, Cuba, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
https://mundo.sputniknews.com/rusia/202012081093762418-cuba-y-nicaragua-entre-paises-beneficiarios-de-la-aportacion-rusa-al-pma-en-2020/

Following self-sufficiency and currently even disputing foreign markets with world producers and exporters, Russia stops imports of pork meat from Brazil. Trader states it's an accomplished fact:
https://br.sputniknews.com/economia/2020120816579384-russia-para-de-importar-carne-suina-do-brasil-por-ser-autossuficiente-fato-consumado-diz-trader/