World meat industry news

The Russian authorities continue to try to manually extinguish the inflationary fire that has engulfed the food market. On Monday, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation announced that it had reached an agreement with poultry meat producers to maintain stable prices until the end of the year.

The department is preparing an appeal to the Ministry of Industry and Trade with a proposal to establish a "corridor of purchase prices", adjusting them to the seasonality of production.

Since the beginning of the year, according to the Federal State Statistics Service, retail chicken meat price has risen by 18.4%, and the rise in prices sharply accelerated in September: from 0.4% per week to 1.25%, and then to 2.01%.

In annual terms, chicken meat, according to Rosstat, is 23.06% more expensive than a year ago - the prices are rising three times faster than consumer inflation.

At the same time, according to the Center for Industry Expertise of the Russian Agricultural Bank, the rise in prices for chicken meat is twice as high as estimated by Rosstat. Thus, in mid-September, the cost of a poultry carcass in the Central Federal District reached 153 rubles per kg, although a year earlier it was kept below 100 rubles. The cost of fillets soared above 250 rubles per kg against 150 rubles in 2020.

Poultry meat production in Russia decreased in 2021 due to "problems with the import of hatching eggs and an unfavorable epizootic situation in a number of regions," said the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev.  According to him, a number of measures were taken in spring. "In particular, customs duties were introduced on the export of basic grains and oilseeds. Secondly, subsidies were introduced for the transportation of soybean meal from the Far East, Siberia and Kaliningrad to the central regions of the country. Changes were also made to the program of concessional lending, including a prolongation up to 12 years of preferential investment loans for enterprises affected by bird flu. In addition, the list of areas of short-term lending has been supplemented by the purchase of feed and feed ingredients. At the same time, the limit for one borrower has been increased to 1.5 billion rubles for short-term loans," Patrushev listed.

The whole range of measures, according to him, by the middle of summer made it possible to practically restore production volumes and stabilize the market.