Russian Agriculture News

Russia takes first place in barley and pea exports in the 2023-2024 season, 07.12.2024.

Lut: Russia ranks first in the world in barley and pea exports in 2023-2024.

BARNAUL, July 12 — RIA Novosti. Russia took first place in the world in barley and pea exports in the 2023-2024 agricultural year (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024), Russian Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said.

"In terms of, for example, exports, yes, everyone knows that for many years now we have held first place in Russia in wheat exports, but last season, which <...> ended on July 1, Russia took first place in barley exports for the first time. <...> And an interesting fact, we took first place in pea exports," Lut said at the "Siberian Field Day" in the Altai Territory.

The Minister emphasized that peas are a crop that has been developing at a slow pace in recent times, but in the last three years Russia has made a breakthrough in this direction.

According to Rosselkhoznadzor , in the 2023-2024 agricultural year, compared to the previous season, barley shipments increased significantly - by 67 percent, to 9.46 million tons, corn - by 31 percent, to 7.7 million tons, peas - twofold, to 3.37 million tons, wheat flour - by 60 percent, to 1.2 thousand tons, oats - twofold, to 334.7 thousand tons, rye - threefold, to 231.5 thousand tons, buckwheat - twofold, to 222.5 thousand tons, sunflower cake - twofold, to 148.4 thousand tons, mustard seeds - threefold, to 136.3 thousand tons.

https://ria.ru/20240712/eksport-1959140179.html

Russia Delivers Record Volume of Sunflower Oil to India, 07.15.2024.

Russia tripled its share of sunflower oil imports to India in May.

MOSCOW, July 15 — RIA Novosti. Russia delivered a record volume of sunflower oil to India in May, according to RIA Novosti's analysis of data from the Indian Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Thus, at the end of spring, the republic purchased 216 thousand tons of domestic products for 209 million dollars. This is 2.8 times more than last year's volume in physical terms and 2.6 times more in monetary terms and became the maximum volume for the entire period of publication of statistics.

As a result, in May, Russia became the main supplier of this product to India with a record 57% share against last year's 20%. At the same time, in May 2023, Argentina was the leader , which, due to a 4.8-fold drop in supplies to $26 million, is now in third place. The second line, as in the previous year, was taken by Ukraine with $90 million, having reduced exports by 16%.

In the first five months of 2024, India imported $693 million worth of sunflower oil from Russia, 1.6 times more than last year. Russia's share in imports rose to 46% from 25% a year earlier.

https://ria.ru/20240715/maslo-1959848627.html

Economist points out EU's interest in Russian fertilizers due to favourable prices, 07.23.2024.

Economist Tikhonov: Russian fertilizers are the cheapest and most competitive.

Russian fertilizers are the cheapest and most competitive on the world market, so it is profitable for the European Union (EU) to buy them. This was told to Izvestia on July 23 by Anatoly Tikhonov, head of the Center for International Agribusiness and Food Security at the Higher School of Corporate Management at RANEPA.

Earlier that day , Vedomosti , citing the European Statistical Agency, reported that Russian companies increased fertilizer supplies to EU countries by 1.7 times year-on-year in January-May 2024, to 1.9 million tons. In monetary terms, exports grew by 30% to €649.4 million.

Tikhonov noted that Europe has a particular need for ammonia fertilizers, which are essential for plant growth.

"Europe is in dire need of them, their soils are depleted. In general, soils around the world are depleted by more than 40%. This was officially recognized by the United Nations in its report. And the soil in Europe is used most intensively, so they simply cannot live without fertilizers," the expert explained.

The economist added that due to the very high price of energy, fertilizer factories are closing in Europe: they are unprofitable compared to the prices at which fertilizers are purchased in Russia.

"In these conditions, there is no alternative to fertilizers from Russia. That is why they are purchased. They are the cheapest, the most competitive," Tikhonov emphasized.

At the same time, speaking about potash fertilizers, he noted that there are not many large deposits of potassium in the world. They are in Russia, Belarus and several other countries. At the same time, deliveries from the Russian Federation are the shortest in terms of logistics and the most favourable in terms of price.

In early July, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Western farmers were having to buy fertilizers from Russia because of problems producing their own amid rising energy prices following the introduction of sanctions against Russia. The article noted that there were concerns in agriculture that the industry could become dependent on Moscow , which would threaten the region's food security.

On April 17, Alexander Daniltsev, Director of the Institute of Trade Policy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia that Russia has always been a traditional supplier of fertilizers to the European Union. He noted that the need for this product remains, so despite political problems, the EU is interested in supplies from the Russian Federation.

https://iz.ru/1731573/2024-07-23/ekonomist-ukazal-na-zainteresovannost-es-v-udobreniiakh-iz-rf-iz-za-vygodnoi-tceny

Russian policy makers are morons. The EU needs sanctions and not cheap resources that ultimately come at the expense of Russia's future needs.

kvs wrote:Russian policy makers are morons.   The EU needs sanctions and not cheap resources that ultimately come at the expense of Russia's future needs.

This might be the case for a mined resource like potassium. But certainly not for ammonia fertilizer. It only needs nitrogen which can be extracted from the air and hydrogen which in Russia's case is extracted from natural gas. Which Russia has centuries worth in existing gas fields.
It is much better IMHO for Russia to sell ammonia or ammonia fertilizer, which is way more expensive, than selling natural gas on the cheap. The ammonia is also way more dense than LNG. It can be transported by boat and delivered to whoever pays more.
But I agree that there should be some sort of export tariff on sales to the EU.

Ammonia is also dual purpose and can be used for explosives. You can bet if it was the other way around the West wouldn't be selling it to Russia.

Surge in EU imports of Russian fertilizer – media, 07.24.2024.

Poland became the biggest buyer in the first five months of this year.

EU imports of Russian fertilizer soared by 70% to 1.9 million tons between January and May this year compared to the same period in 2023, Vedomosti reported on Tuesday, citing Eurostat data.

In monetary terms, the bloc’s purchases amounted to more than €649 million ($703 million), marking a year-on-year increase of 30%.

In May alone, imports rose by 5% year-on-year to €77.4 million ($83.8 million) in monetary terms and by 17% to 238,400 tons in volume. The growth is mainly attributed to an increase in purchases of potassic manure and multiple-nutrient fertilizers, the outlet noted.

Meanwhile, EU imports of Russian nitrogen fertilizers grew by 39% in the first five months of this year, and amounted to 57% of the bloc’s entire purchases of fertilizers from the country. Poland emerged as a top buyer of Russian urea having increased imports by 25% to almost 468,000 tons. It was followed by France, Germany and Italy, which boosted purchases by 12%, 11% and 10%, respectively.

Vedomosti noted that fertilizer production costs had soared across the bloc in 2022 as a result of rising natural gas prices. Back then, Russian energy giant Gazprom – once the EU’s main gas supplier – dramatically reduced exports to the bloc following Western sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Surging input costs forced EU producers of nitrogen-based fertilizers to cut production, while some companies had to temporarily halt operations entirely, forcing the bloc’s farmers to ramp up imports from Russia, the world’s largest producer and exporter of urea.

Last year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) revealed that Germany had boosted purchases of Russian fertilizers by roughly 334%, from 38,500 tons in July 2022 to 167,000 tons in June 2023. Meanwhile, imports of urea alone soared by 304% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period of the previous year.

Earlier this year, CEO of Norwegian chemical producer Yara International, Svein Tore Holsether, warned in an interview with FT that bloc was becoming more and more dependent on Russian fertilizers, just as it did with natural gas.

https://www.rt.com/business/601565-eu-imports-russian-fertilizers-surge/

GarryB wrote:I love the irony that now that Europe is getting its natural gas from the US things like Ammonia is already extracted so they can create industries like fertiliser industries to extract and sell that too...

There's no ammonia in natural gas Garry. Process of getting ammonia includes "scrubbing " methane from natgas and adding nitrogen. With few more steps. You can easily find online how whole process works.

caveat emptor wrote:There's no ammonia in natural gas Garry. Process of getting ammonia includes "scrubbing " methane from natgas and adding nitrogen.  With few more steps. You can easily find online how whole process works.

Natural gas is mostly methane with some other stuff mixed in. Methane is CH4.
You basically extract the hydrogen from the natural gas i.e. take that H4 out with steam reforming.
Then you extract nitrogen gas which is N2 from the atmosphere via liquefaction.
The nitrogen and hydrogen are combined to make NH4 i.e. ammonia to make fertilizer.

It is basically the Haber-Bosch process with steam reforming of natural gas.

lancelot wrote:

kvs wrote:Russian policy makers are morons.   The EU needs sanctions and not cheap resources that ultimately come at the expense of Russia's future needs.

This might be the case for a mined resource like potassium. But certainly not for ammonia fertilizer. It only needs nitrogen which can be extracted from the air and hydrogen which in Russia's case is extracted from natural gas. Which Russia has centuries worth in existing gas fields.
It is much better IMHO for Russia to sell ammonia or ammonia fertilizer, which is way more expensive, than selling natural gas on the cheap. The ammonia is also way more dense than LNG. It can be transported by boat and delivered to whoever pays more.
But I agree that there should be some sort of export tariff on sales to the EU.

Ammonia is also dual purpose and can be used for explosives. You can bet if it was the other way around the West wouldn't be selling it to Russia.

It costs energy, in particular fossil fuels energy. So it is not cheap and indefinite. Trading with the enemy during war is a crime no matter how you
slice it. Russia does not need to establish good relations with foaming at the mouth haters that are literally waging war against it. The same scum that
want to ramp it up to a full blown nuclear war. They can come crawling and begging if they need something. But these f*cks in the Russian government
are actually feeding them charity.

Russia's main trump card for battling in the global grain market is its possibility of dealing with national currencies for agriculture exports, whereas the US, Ukraine & EU opt for hard currency deals (US dollar and Euro). Brazil also looks anxiously after hard currency in its corn and soybean exports.

The United States is preparing to fight for Odessa, by Sergey Savchuk for RiaNovosti. 08.01.2024.

The other day, the US Senate held another hearing – and there was something to listen to. The brightest speaker was James O'Brien, the adviser to the Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. In his emotional speech, he managed to praise free Armenia, which has embarked on the path of European integration, demanded that Georgia stop building a seaport jointly with China, and calmed the alarmed public by announcing that NATO had begun developing a new military strategy against Russia. In short, as the youth say these days, he gave a speech with all his money.

In this stream of democratic gendarmerie, the beautiful Odessa sparkled like a separate diamond. Mr. O'Brien stated bluntly and directly that the United States cannot allow Russia to seize this city, since then Moscow will control 20 percent of the world grain market.

Once again, slowly: not because it is necessary to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine , but solely to prevent the Russians from becoming a global market dominant. Here it is somehow inconvenient to recall the old axiom that America is fighting not for Ukraine, but against Russia, not at all taking into account such a trifle as Kiev's human losses . As they say, the masks are off, come shave.

Putting aside the sarcasm, the problem Washington faces in the event of the loss of Odessa and the Black Sea ports is logically a concern for the United States, where business is akin to religion and making a profit is sacred.

As always, let's start with numbers, because the average person often lumps everything together, which is wrong.

As Russian folk wisdom says, bread is the head of everything, and the rapidly growing population of the planet consumes more and more bread and related products. Cereals are the most common agricultural crop in the world due to their sufficient resistance to climatic conditions, ease of storage and transportation, and also due to the incredible breadth of application as a basic food product. The world grain market is based on the following whales: corn, wheat, rice, barley, oats and rye. In the Western segment, sorghum is also added to the list. In Russia, it is also cultivated, for example, in the Volgograd, Rostov and Orenburg regions , but the area of ​​crops compared to other crops is not serious.

The queen of grain fields is, without a doubt, corn. Over a billion tons are harvested annually in the world. Wheat firmly holds the second place: last year, grain growers without borders threshed 785 million tons. Next come rice (523 million), oats (25 million) and barley (20.5 million), as well as rye (11 million). It is unrealistic to consider data on all crops within the framework of a short article, so let's focus on the two main ones.

So, as is known, the main country - exporter of agricultural products is the USA . Last year, Americans traded the fruits of their land for 195 billion dollars. For comparison: the much-talked-about arms export brought American companies 238 billion during the same period. The difference is not that critically large.

Against this background, how can one not recall the honeyed tales that Ukrainians were treated to on Euromaidan and later, promising that now Ukraine would become a European, if not a world granary. True, the savvy uncles from Washington forgot to say that there is already the fattest shark in this ocean and it does not need competitors at all. Also, they did not tell everyone dreaming of lace panties that there is not a single purely agricultural superpower in the world. The same States, in addition to the most powerful agricultural sector, are leaders in the field of high and science-intensive technologies.

Total grain production in the United States this year is expected to be $160 billion, of which more than $31 billion will be exported. Imports will not exceed $1 billion.

The United States is the world's largest corn producer. About 15 million bushels are grown here annually, equivalent to 405 million tons, with Americans consuming only a tenth of that, and the rest is sold abroad. Russia harvested 15.8 million tons in the 2023/24 season, of which 11 million tons were used for domestic needs (90 percent is used for feed production).

The situation with wheat is the opposite, but the US is vigorously catching up. Last year, our farmers harvested 92.8 million tons of wheat, of which 51 million were sold for export, which amounted to almost 13 percent of the world market. The US threshed 54.7 million tons, but here we must understand that just three years ago they harvested ten million tons less. Exports amounted to 27.5 million, or less than seven percent of the market.

As for Ukraine, the local Ministry of Agriculture reported harvesting 21 million tons of wheat last year, adding with a tear in its eye that another 4.4 million were harvested in the "occupied" territories. In 2023, while the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative was in effect, 49 million tons of grain were transshipped through Ukrainian ports for export, of which 6.5 million tons were corn, six were wheat, and barley and rye were stowed in the holds of dry cargo ships in the amount of 900 thousand tons each.

Initially, it was postulated that Ukrainian grain should be exported in the interests of starving children in Africa , but later it turned out that about three percent ended up on the Black Continent, and the rest safely settled in Europe. At the same time, everyone remembers the months-long strikes of Polish, Hungarian and other farmers, who even blocked the border with Nezalezhnaya, demanding that this flow of dumped grain, making their own production unprofitable, be stopped. And the European grain growers were not lying.

Along with the European economy getting hooked on American LNG, there was a parallel hooking on grain. Ukraine, totally controlled by the US, and Ukrainian agricultural holdings, which, under the protection of the American embassy, ​​had secured a reservation for employees, quotas for fertilizers and discounts on fuel and lubricants, were driving corn and wheat to the West strictly in the interests of their overlord. It's like hormone injections: the more you inject, the less the body produces on its own. The EU's production organism reacted identically to the injection of tens of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain, increasing its own dependence on imports.

So, Ukrainian grain is a geopolitical hook for the US, and for Russia, a battering ram to capture the world market. Is it any wonder that Washington is preparing for a circular defence of Odessa?

https://ria.ru/20240801/ssha-1963306828.html

In Russia, after the cucumber boom, a tomato boom began, by Olga Samofalova for VZGLYAD. 08.02.2024.

In recent years, Russia has begun to increase not only the production of tomatoes themselves, but also the production of finished products from them, primarily tomato paste. However, the task of self-sufficiency in tomatoes has not yet been fully resolved - unlike cucumbers. The share of imported tomatoes is still significant. Why was it more difficult to cope with tomatoes than with cucumbers?

In Russia, from 2019 to 2023, the production of tomato products increased by 7%: from 613 to 655 thousand tons, which was facilitated by an increase in demand. And the production of tomato paste and puree increased especially strongly - by 15.4%: from 197 to 227 thousand tons. Such data are cited in their study by BusinesStat.

In addition to pastes and purees, tomato products also include juices and drinks, tomato sauces and ketchups, as well as whole or sliced ​​canned tomatoes.

The production of tomato products is growing, including due to the increased popularity of home cooking and healthy eating.

A feature of tomato paste and puree production in Russia is the presence or absence of their own raw materials. Some companies process fresh tomatoes (including those grown in their own fields) and produce concentrates in industrial packaging and for retail.

For example, the company TM "Pikanta" has its own tomato fields in Astrakhan, which provide high-quality raw materials. From it, the company makes paste, adjika, appetitka, sauces and ketchups, mashed tomato pulp and pizza sauce. "Since 2022, there has been an increase in revenue from the sale of tomato products, and in 2024, an increase of about 67% is predicted. The main product that brings in the bulk of revenue is mashed passata tomato pulp. This is an import-substituted product, the popularity of which in Russia is growing every quarter. This year, it is expected to produce about 5 million pieces of passata," says Igor Morozov, head of the tomato department "Tasty Product" (TM "Pikanta").

This year, another plant for the production of Tomarina paste will be launched in the Astrakhan Region with investments of 8 billion rubles. This will be a full-cycle plant that will be able to grow 230 thousand tons of tomatoes per year and produce 23 thousand tons of paste. The company planted Heinz tomatoes on 650 hectares of open ground.

There is a shortage of both raw materials for the production of tomato paste and factories for its production. “Under the sanctions, supplies of tomato paste and puree from EU countries have significantly decreased. The capacity of Russian factories was insufficient to cover the increased demand. Previously, this type of activity was unpopular with farmers. A significant share of tomato producers produced goods using ready-made paste, including those from foreign companies. Therefore, the high growth rates now may be associated with a low comparison base,” notes Olga Lebedinskaya, associate professor of the statistics department at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Now we have to compete with tomato paste, which is imported mainly from China.

The situation with the production of domestic tomatoes in Russia is also far from ideal, although improvements are already noticeable. However, the level of self-sufficiency of Russia in tomatoes in 2023 was only 65%, while for cucumbers it reached 95%. The share of imported tomatoes on the market is still high - about 35%. The key suppliers of tomatoes to Russia remain Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (data from IKAR).

The high share of imported tomatoes is explained by the fact that when sanctions in 2014 pushed the country to think about food security, investors first rushed to invest in modern greenhouses for cucumber production, since they can earn more. At first, there were few people willing to invest in tomatoes. For comparison: from 1 square meter you can collect more than 160 kg of cucumbers and only about 100 kg of tomatoes.

However, when the ceiling for cucumbers was reached, greenhouse farms began to develop mainly due to investments in tomato production. In the structure of production in recent years, there has been a gradual decrease in the share of greenhouse cucumbers at the expense of tomato production, IKAR notes.

"The goal, as in the case of cucumbers, should be self-sufficiency of the country in tomatoes, so there is still room to grow. Import substitution is necessary, since in the conditions of sanctions pressure and difficulties with payments, imported products are becoming very expensive for Russians.

In turn, domestic production of tomatoes will ensure food security and make prices for this product more predictable,” says Sergei Grishunin, Managing Director of the NRA rating service.

Every year new greenhouse farms for growing tomatoes are opened. Last year alone, new greenhouse complexes were launched in the Leningrad Region (Dary Prirody), Stavropol Krai (Belaya Dacha), the Republic of Bashkortostan (Eco-Culture) and North Ossetia (Alania).

Now it is not cucumbers, but tomatoes that show higher growth dynamics. Thus, from 2018 to 2023, the production of greenhouse cucumbers increased by 16.5%, and tomatoes - by a third. The profitability of greenhouse vegetables in 2023 reached a record 22.8% excluding subsidies, so new projects will continue to appear.

Open-ground tomato production is also growing. Over five years, tomato production has increased 1.2 times to a record 1.1 million tons, and in closed ground – 1.7 times to 724 thousand tons, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

The leader in the country in greenhouse tomato production is Stavropol Krai. Krasnodar Krai, Lipetsk, Moscow, Kaluga, Voronezh and Tambov regions are also successful. These regions account for more than 50% of the total volume.

The main contribution to the development of open-ground vegetable production is made by the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions, as well as the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, which together produce about 95% of open-ground tomatoes.

“The risks to the growth of tomato production are, first of all, weather conditions, as well as the availability of seeds, since Russia’s seed industry is still far from self-sufficiency,” says Sergei Grishunin.

According to him, it is also necessary to implement automation systems not only for growing vegetables, but also for preparing the product (sorting, packaging, labeling), since a large number of product losses occur at this stage. High-tech methods, including artificial intelligence, are now being used for this.

"The high cost of investment in tomato production is also a brake on the development of the industry, and here state support in the form of preferential loans is critical. If farms pay interest at current rates, then tomatoes in Russia will become golden. State support for investment in seed farming is also needed. Without the entire value chain, including seed production, it is impossible to create food security," Grishunin believes. The industry also faces a shortage of human capital: it is necessary to restore the training processes for agronomists and plant protection specialists, the expert concludes.

https://vz.ru/economy/2024/8/2/1280250.html

Russia is not Italy and does not have ideal conditions for growing tomatoes. Even though they come from the New World like potatoes, they are not
good for high latitude, colder growing conditions. Unless there are massive greenhouse operations established for this plant, Russia will need to import
tomatoes in the off season spanning most of the year. Greenhouses are not cheap and the situation with cucumbers makes economic sense.

The downside of importing tomatoes is that they are picked green and then kept cold during transport. Local production is better if they let the fruit
ripen longer.

There are other sources of Vitamin C which grow better in cold climates. Like beets.

Unpasteurized sauerkraut has enormous amounts of vitamin C. Cabbage can be grown in Russian in ample amounts. Beets are not very healthy
since they have a lot of sugar and oxalic acid. Fermented cabbage has a way lower glycemic index and is low in oxalic acid.

Ministry of Agriculture: Russian cheese making is experiencing a real boom, 08.05.2024.

The Russian Ministry of Agriculture stated that Russian cheese making is experiencing a real boom, as it received a big boost after the introduction of the food embargo.

"Cheese production has almost doubled over the past ten years (from 435 thousand tons to 801 thousand tons). In fact, a new industry has been created during this time. Hundreds of craft production facilities with unique products have appeared across the country," the Ministry of Agriculture said.

The department also noted that Russian cheesemakers have learned not only to make Parmesan, Camembert and Burrata, but have also created many of their own new recipes, offering cheeses of the highest quality.

"Today, there are more than 1,000 enterprises operating in Russia. According to the National Union of Milk Producers, almost 9,500 different types of this product are sold in chain retail alone," the department noted.

"Today, there are more than 1,000 enterprises operating in Russia. According to the National Union of Milk Producers, almost 9,500 different types of this product are sold in chain retail alone," the department noted.

Earlier, Russian Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut stated that Russian companies are capable of producing almost anything and adapting to any external conditions.

https://russian.rt.com/business/news/1350689-syrodelie-rascvet-rossiya

Ministry of Agriculture: Russia is the world leader in wheat supplies, 08.05.2024.

Russia is the world leader in supplies of wheat, peas, barley, oil flax, frozen fish. This was stated by the Ministry of Agriculture.

According to updated data, Russia also occupies a leading position in sunflower oil and a number of other products. In addition, it sends food to more than 160 countries.

"In total, over ten years, domestic agricultural exports have increased by 2.6 times and amounted to $43.5 billion at the end of last year, compared to $17.1 billion in 2013. Today, Russia exports food to more than 160 countries and is the world leader in the supply of wheat, peas, barley, oilseed flax, frozen fish, and occupies a leading position in sunflower oil and a number of other products," the department said.

It was previously reported that Russia exported a record 55.3 million tons of wheat abroad following the results of the 2023-2024 agricultural season.

https://russian.rt.com/business/news/1350694-pshenica-postavki-lider

That is very impressive. Russia had agricultural malaise for decades. I think it has never been this good in Russia.

How to Make Wine Russia's New Oil, by Katya Zorina for VZGLYAD. 08.06.2024.

Ten years ago, on August 6, 2014, so-called food counter-sanctions were introduced in Russia – restrictions on the supply of foreign agricultural products. These measures became the basis for many others aimed at increasing Russia’s food independence. And results were achieved even in areas where domestic agriculture was experiencing a deep crisis – for example, in winemaking.

Global wine consumption has fallen to its lowest since 1996. In 2023, 22.1 billion liters of wine were consumed worldwide, compared to 22.7 billion liters the year before. The reasons for the decline include rising wine prices amid the energy crisis and a significant – 25% – decline in wine consumption in China. A decline was also observed in the United States, Italy, France, Great Britain and Germany.

In Russia, people also began to drink half as much wine compared to Soviet times , and its production was reduced, but recently a different trend has been observed. In particular, according to the results of 2023, our country showed a 3% increase in wine consumption compared to the previous year, taking seventh place in the world in this indicator. This is evidenced by data from the International Organization of Vine and Wine.

Accordingly, wine production in Russia has also been growing in recent years. In the first half of 2024, “wine production increased by 21% across the country,” says Irina Fedina, deputy director of the Department of Food and Processing Industry at the Ministry of Agriculture. And from January to May of this year, wine sales grew almost twice as fast as strong alcoholic beverages, in particular vodka.

Production is growing, in part, because Russian consumers increasingly prefer Russian wine. According to Roskachestvo , “the reputation of domestic wine among Russians continues to improve. Every fourth Russian prefers domestic wine to foreign wine.” The share of those who believe that the quality of foreign wines is higher is decreasing: in particular, the share of those who claim that most Russian wines are inferior in quality to foreign ones has decreased from 32% to 27%. In blind tastings, it is difficult to distinguish the products of domestic winemakers from drinks from Italy or Portugal. Moreover, they often win .

Revival of Russian winemaking

Russian winemaking is experiencing a renaissance after a deep crisis provoked by the anti-alcohol campaign of the 1980s. At that time, in some traditional wine-making regions, the area of ​​vineyards was reduced, and wine production fell to the levels of the Great Patriotic War.

For decades, the wine industry was left to its own devices, and the quality ratings for Russian wines were approaching negative values. In the 1990s, strong drinks, often home-made, and numerous counterfeit wines were in vogue (at any Moscow region market, there was four times more “Georgian” or “Moldovan” wine than those countries were capable of producing). It seemed simply impossible to pull the industry out of such an abyss.

And yet, business began to consider wine production as a significant asset already in the early 2000s, and the 2008 crisis increased this interest. Between 2000 and 2014, 64.2 thousand hectares of new grape plantations were planted in the country.

At the same time, the state began to bring order to winemaking.

The technical regulations for the production of domestic wine have begun to tighten, and restrictions on the import of wine materials from abroad have been imposed. In 2020, the law "On Viticulture and Winemaking in the Russian Federation" was adopted. It enshrined the concepts of wine with a protected geographical indication (PGI) and a protected designation of origin (PDO) and limited the use of imported wine materials.

In addition, the federal project "Stimulating the Development of Viticulture and Winemaking" has been implemented since 2022. The funds allocated by the state are spent on the purchase of seedlings and the development of nurseries, land reclamation work, fertilizers and the introduction of modern land cultivation technologies, the purchase of necessary equipment and the organization of infrastructure. Among the support measures available to winemakers are preferential loans, subsidies, grants, preferential transportation of products abroad, support for product certification, tax deductions when calculating excise taxes.

Wine and Sovereignty

Wine, although it seems to be a “light”, entertaining product, carries great significance for both the economy and everyday culture. Support for the wine industry is a significant part of state policy in the sphere of ensuring Russian food, biological and cultural sovereignty.

In economic terms, this is both a resource for filling the budget through excise taxes and an incentive to create jobs and new technologies. And not only in the industry, but also in all related areas - from equipment production to the creation of tourist clusters. A separate line is the development of selection and genetic engineering, counteraction to plant diseases - a safety issue for all agriculture.

In addition, wine is a much more complex product compared to beer or traditional distillates. Therefore, the development of winemaking is an indicator of the level of production culture, a significant part of national branding and an element of international prestige. The export of Russian wine is already actively developing. The creations of domestic winemakers are presented in China, Vietnam, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.

The development of winemaking helps to solve the social problem of shifting the focus of alcohol consumption from strong drinks and, accordingly, reducing the negative effects of such consumption – illness, injury, accidents, crime.

Thanks to government decisions, active investments in the wine industry, and the growing public interest in domestic products, recent years have become truly breakthrough years for domestic winemaking. If ten years ago Russian producers used less than half of domestic raw materials, and about 70% of imported wine material was used in the production of sparkling wines, today its import has practically ceased.

"Since 2019, we have seen an unprecedented reduction in imported bulk (wine material purchased by wine producers who do not have or do not have enough of their own wine material - Vzglyad note). According to our estimates, there has been a 98% reduction, there is practically no imported bulk. Of course, this has had an extremely positive effect not only on increasing the investment attractiveness of the industry, but also on improving the quality and reputation of domestic wine," noted the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev.

During the period of the law "On Viticulture and Winemaking" the share of Russian wine in the domestic market has grown from 25-30% to more than 55% . The area of ​​vineyards is growing. Today the total area of ​​Russian vineyards has reached 105 thousand hectares.

Prospects for Russian winemaking

For traditionally wine-producing countries, wine is a significant source of export income. For example, in Italy, wine ranks first in all agricultural exports. Russian products have no less potential in this regard. In fact, domestic wine has all the prerequisites to become another "new oil". Among Russia's advantages are unique terroirs, autochthonous grape varieties, and developments by Soviet breeders. And most importantly, there are many enthusiasts who are completely immersed in the winemaking business.

Large nurseries are already starting up in Krasnodar Krai and Dagestan (in particular, the launch of the Federal Viticulture Center in Kuban was announced in April), thanks to which, in the next 4-5 years, the market needs will be met by more than 80%. The production of stainless steel containers necessary for creating new wines is actively developing. Hatches, cranes and other equipment are being developed, which is currently being purchased abroad.

The head of state highly praised the development of the wine industry. "Winemaking in our country has taken a serious step in its development," Vladimir Putin said in March at a meeting with representatives of agricultural enterprises in Stavropol Krai.

At the state level, new solutions aimed at supporting domestic winemaking continue to be discussed. Thus, this fall we can expect the adoption of a GOST for wine lists, which should ensure a share of at least 25-30% of domestic drinks in restaurant menus. The government is also developing a Strategy for the Development of Viticulture and Winemaking until 2050. The goal is to make the wine industry independent of geopolitical, economic and infrastructural risks.

In addition, the issue of expanding the geography of Russian winemaking is on the agenda. The traditional winemaking regions - Kuban, Crimea, the Don Valley, Stavropol Krai, Dagestan, the Terek Valley - have recently been joined by the Voronezh and Samara regions. The possibilities of creating wineries in the Lipetsk, Vladimir, Ivanovo regions, and the Far East are being explored. Experts, discussing the possibilities of developing northern winemaking, refer to the experience of monastery wineries, in particular the Valaam Monastery, and recall the unique frost-resistant varieties of Soviet selection.

https://vz.ru/economy/2024/8/6/1267356.html

RT: Russian shops and national dishes are gaining popularity in Germany, by Alexey Degtyarev for VZGLYAD. 08.06.2024.

Russian national dishes, as well as shops and products, are becoming increasingly popular among residents of a number of German cities, local residents reported.

A number of German citizens are increasingly going to Poland or “Russian spots” for cheap food, one of RT’s interlocutors said .

"Many people do this. It tastes better in Russian stores," the woman explained.

Anna, who lives in Hamburg, pointed out that both Germans and Ukrainians go to Russian stores, and they speak Russian there.

The head of the volunteer project “The Way Home” Anatoly Bublik reported that in two and a half years in some German regions meat has become 200-220% more expensive, sugar – 60%.

https://vz.ru/news/2024/8/6/1280988.html

Russia has given America a giant pig and grain, by Kirill Strelnikov for RiaNovosti. 08.07.2024.

Yesterday, Russian Minister of Agriculture Oksana Lut, summing up the results of a decade of food embargo, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation prohibiting the import of agricultural products and food to Russia from countries that introduced or supported anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the return of Crimea "to its native harbor", stated that "in ten years of the food embargo, Russia has formed one of the most competitive, flexible and technologically advanced agricultural markets in the world."

There are simple and important things behind this phrase: during this decade, Russia has made a powerful leap forward in the development of the agricultural sector, got rid of import dependence on all critical types of food products, became a global net exporter of food (for several years now, we have been sending abroad significantly more than we import) and tore the world food market monopolized by the West into dishwasher chips.

A bit of rabid Kremlin propaganda:

• From 2014 to 2023, agricultural production in Russia grew by 33.2 percent, in the food sector - by 42.9 percent.

• Over ten years, our agricultural exports have increased by 2.6 times and reached 43.5 billion dollars by the end of 2023, compared to 17.1 billion in 2013.

• During the food embargo, the harvest of grain increased almost twofold, oilseeds - 2.3 times, potatoes - 1.6 times, vegetables - 1.7 times, fruits and berries - 2.8 times.

• Livestock and poultry production increased by 35.6 percent (we are now fourth in the world in meat production), and milk production by 13.2 percent.

And so on and so forth and all that sort of thing.

An interesting point: the vacated niches were almost immediately occupied by domestic businesses, and consumers felt almost no changes.

But our enemies and competitors really felt the changes.

As Oksana Lut said, Russia has taken a strategic course on "strengthening Russia's position as a guarantor of global food security," which is simply tearing the West apart, which can do nothing, watching as Russia arranges a "great redistribution" on the world food market that it has long occupied and deprives the wolves from the wonderful garden of one of the most powerful levers of influence on world politics and economics.

Today, "tightly isolated" Russia sends food to more than 160 countries and is the world leader in the supply of wheat, peas, barley, oilseed flax and frozen fish, and also occupies a leading position in sunflower oil and a number of other types of agricultural products, which naturally strengthens our international ties, influence and authority, fills our budget and wounds the Russophobic clique in the collective West to the very heart.

Since the start of the NWO, the European Union alone has imposed 14 sanctions packages against Russia, the main goal of which is to “weaken Russia’s economic base, deny access to critical technologies and markets, and accordingly significantly reduce its ability to wage war.”

Either the bags were missing handles, or the cellophane was no longer what it used to be, but Russia rode through most of the sanctions without a hitch - and instead of crawling back to the cemetery, it began a dynamic expansion into the global food market.

Europe was the first to sound the alarm: at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2022, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen , in the style of Goebbels, made a speech that "just as in the energy sector, Russia uses food resources as a weapon that strikes the entire world." However, she forgot that it is precisely the collective West, and above all the United States , that standardly and globally uses "food blackmail" to strengthen its dominance.

In particular, the US "often used food as a weapon, controlling food exports to achieve political goals." For example, Earl Butz, the head of the US Department of Agriculture in the Nixon and Ford administrations, openly stated that "for the US, food is a weapon." One of the working schemes was when the US flooded the market of a particular country with cheap (and strictly American) products, subsidized from the "paper" US budget, and consistently destroyed the local agricultural sector, which ultimately tied the country tightly to food supplies from America. And if the government of that country later began to twitch, the "food valve" was always at hand.

And so that there would be no competitors on the global food market that could ruin such a wonderful scheme, the collective West simply removed them or bought them up, as a result of which not just food monopolies, but super-monopolies emerged in the world.

A moment of pain for lovers of the scorching truth about " Putin's oligarchic regime ": according to the latest data, 44 percent of the entire world agricultural machinery market is controlled by just four companies, 40 percent of the entire seed market - by two companies, 62 percent of the world's agrochemicals - by four companies, 80 percent of the world's grain trade - by four companies. Most of them are American.

And Russia, which first made its domestic agricultural market completely independent from the West, and then entered the foreign market, has really stepped on the tails of Western monopolies.

This was so unexpected and so painful that the former "masters of the chicken legs" fell into a real hysteria. It got to the point that at the very top there are now feverishly developing initiatives to adopt at the international level (including within the UN ) some kind of charter establishing a "complete ban on the "militarization" of the food market, and to resist the deliberate disruption of supply chains and the manipulation of critical types of food as a method of waging war." No more and no less - apparently, the tail was pinned down very hard.

However, Russia has long since responded to all sanctions and prohibitions - your hands are too short to dictate to whom and what to sell us and what to feed us.

Given that by all indications the world is facing a colossal food crisis (which sad Western analysts have already dubbed a polycrisis), these hands may shrink even more. The world's leading insurance company, Lloyd's, sees a "giant food shock" in the next 30 years. According to some data, even against the backdrop of a conditional increase in agricultural production, accelerating climate change has already reduced the productivity of the global agricultural sector by 30-35 percent.

This means that the Russian agricultural industry will confidently expand its borders further: as Vladimir Putin said, “Russia’s borders do not end anywhere.”

https://ria.ru/20240807/rossiya-1964513860.html

In Russia, during the period of return frosts, over 1.1 million hectares of crops were lost, but the prompt work of farmers made it possible to replant most of them, including high-margin crops. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Andrei Razin stated this within the framework of the XI Open Russian Plowing Championship, reports TASS .

According to the deputy minister, the country has increased plantings of high-margin crops. Thus, he noted that an increase of almost 30% was recorded in leguminous crops. The volume of pea sowing increased by more than 17%.

Razin also said that sowing under sugar beets has increased by more than 9%, and by 7% under oilseeds. In addition, this year an absolute record was reached for the area under soybeans - more than 4.3 million hectares. In addition, the record for oilseeds, rapeseed, and including oilseed flax was updated, the deputy head of the department added.

Earlier, a new way to increase strawberry yields appeared in Russia .

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog/social/news/2024/08/16/23707351.shtml?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

Can't find a fishing thread so have added it here. If OK can we change the title to 'Agriculture and Fisheries'?

Russian specialists will conduct scientific work on two vessels K-1711 "Atlantniro" and K-1704 "Atlantis" as part of the Great African Expedition

 The result of the expedition will be the expansion of the geography of domestic fishing and an increase in the volume of production (catch) of aquatic biological resources, strengthening Russia's position as a maritime power both in the areas of direct research and in the World Ocean as a whole.
Rosrybolovstvo, which initiated the event, sent applications through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out work in the EEZs of Morocco, Mauritania, Eritrea, Oman, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, the Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia and Mozambique, but as of August 9, official consent had only been received from Mauritania.

"The authorities of Gabon, Mauritius, Cameroon, Madagascar, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Guinea, and Sierra Leone have expressed interest in conducting the expedition," the department's materials report.

The 2024-2025 large African expedition launched from Kaliningrad on August 21. It involves two large-scale work packages in the exclusive economic zones of West African countries and the western Indian Ocean. The goal of the research mission, which will be supported by the Roscongress Foundation, will be to assess the state of aquatic biological resources in these areas. The expedition will create new opportunities for the development of the Russian fishing industry, expansion of export markets and strengthening the country's political position on the African continent.

#в_мире
Sofa General Staff

Another fisheries item. Hint  

Zlatti71
@Zlatti_71

Residents of the United States and several European nations are facing seafood shortages as a result of sanctions imposed on Russia, according to a report by RIA Novosti.

Since March 2022, Washington has placed restrictions on the import of Russian seafood, including salmon, pollock, crabs, and cod. These measures have since expanded to include processed seafood products from any country if the ingredients originated in Russia.

Several major U.S. seafood suppliers, which previously sourced from Russia, are reportedly at risk of bankruptcy. In contrast, Moscow’s seafood exports have seen no significant disruptions, with Russia increasing shipments to China to offset the loss of Western markets.

Alexander Panin, chairman of the Russian Fish Union, previously warned that U.S. sanctions on Russian seafood could have broader economic consequences, according to Russian media outlet Zvezda.