World meat industry news

A draft law on animal by-products, namely manure and guano, has been passed by State Duma in its first reading at the plenary meeting on May 24, 2022.

The document was presented to the State Duma by a group of senators and deputies of the lower house on March 1, 2022.

As Vladimir Kashin, a State Duma deputy and one of the authors of the document, explained in his speech at the plenary meeting, the draft law is designed to free livestock farmers from unlawful penalties and support the production of organic fertilizers in Russia.

The authors of the project say, that legislation ambiguity issue, in terms of production waste, such as manure and guano, has been in place since 2015.

On the one hand, according to the explanatory statements of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (Minprirody) and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation (Minselkhoz), when manure is processed into fertilizers at agricultural production, no special license or environmental fee is required.

“However, it doesn’t work that way. The explanatory statements of the competent authorities, that establish legal and regulatory framework, are not taken into account by the enforcement body, the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor)”, explain the authors of the document.

The issue has been repeatedly raised by the National Union of Swine Breeders. “It wreaks havoc on the industry. Like this most egregious case, when Rosprirodnadzor in the Stavropol Territory made a claim for 7.5 billion rubles against one of our best producers with an annual turnover of 5 billion rubles,” Yury Kovalev, CEO of the National Union of Swine Breeders, said earlier in a comment to Veterinary and Life.

About 180 million tons of animal by-products are produced annually at Russian animal facilities. More than 60% of pig and poultry producers process manure and guano into organic fertilizers.

The draft law provides for the introduction of the concept of “animal by-products”. It suggests accommodation of property rights on animal by-products. This will make it part of the accounting and tax reporting systems, and will allow bringing it to the market.  

The adoption of the law will contribute to creating an independent industry for organic fertilizers. It will be possible to export these products and use animal by-products as raw materials in agricultural production,” goes the explanatory note to the project.

The law also sets a system for manure and guano management at all stages, including transportation, processing, sale and use.