September 15, 2009
Russian meat farming faces tough conditions
More Russian meat farmers are deciding to sell their business due to huge losses suffered in the current financial conditions.
Those who still have some hopes since the beginning of September have sent more cattle to slaughter and refused to make large winter feed stocks.
The number of dairy and beef cattle in Russia decreased by 200,000 over the past few months, according to official data.
Due to low meat and milk prices, nearly 99 percent of Russian farmers were currently bearing losses, Russian analysts said.
Farmer representatives claim that their income was plunging dangerously low, that current beef prices are 30-percent less than a year ago and the money they get for cattle is on the way down.
The main reason for this is low purchase prices paid by the processors.
But, according to sources in the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, the supply of beef on smuggling schemes, and the import through the CIS countries resulted in lower prices in the domestic market and made the financial struggles of the local farmers less.
