World meat industry news

It recently became known that two livestock markets will open in Russia by the end of the year - in the Kostroma region and in Buryatia. Such land-based platforms will be an addition to the so-called electronic exchange for the sale of farm animals, which has been operating for two years.

Why are such sites needed, how will they work and what animals can be sold or bought there? Roman Kostyuk, General Director of the National Union of Beef Producers, member of the expert council of the National Agrarian Agency, answered these and other questions.

So, what are livestock markets and what are they for?

Kostyuk: Russia is practically the only country in the world where there is livestock farming, but there are no livestock markets. Moreover, they exist in many republics of the former USSR, for example, in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I will say more, the entire livestock economy of Sudan (Africa) is built on livestock markets, there are 270 of them in Australia, about 470 in America, and there are also small livestock markets in Europe. Such platforms provide infrastructure for the purchase and sale of animals by the population and small farms. There are systems for monitoring the quality of livestock and checking documents for animals. As a rule, insurance and transport companies, banks, and so on operate in livestock markets. That is, this is a professional industry for the circulation of farm animals.

Today in Russia, a significant drop in interest in livestock farming is due to the fact that most farmers and private farms in distant regions have livestock, but cannot sell it properly. Who can they sell it to, how do they know this price? Therefore, the livestock market is a critically missing infrastructure for the livestock industry to finally experience a positive turnaround.

- Will livestock markets work not only for cows?

- No. We position this network as a platform for horse breeders, and for sheep breeders, and for goat breeders, and for owners of cattle and small cattle. The exception is for pig farmers, because... This is an extremely difficult issue of controlling the spread of ASF.

- What will such markets be like? And how will they work?

- A few years ago, before the preparation of sites for livestock markets began, in cooperation with Rosselkhoznadzor, a digital data tracing platform was created. This is not a state system, but a commodity-industry system. That is, roughly speaking, there is a breeder from Kaliningrad who sold his farm animals to Bryansk, from where the offspring left for Siberia. So, this final buyer will know everything about the origin of his livestock through this system. On the other hand, if a particular breeder has a good history of commercial animals, and not only breeding ones, then his cattle gradually begin to be in demand. This is, in fact, a professional exchange platform where the seller first places his offer and, when a request appears, the animals are brought to the livestock market. That is, not blindly at random, but under a deal.

I would like to point out one more feature. An institute of brokers will be formed in these livestock markets. These are people who know the rules of the market and trading, as well as the owners of animals in their territory. This is how farmers work abroad? They call their broker and say: I have a surplus, take it to the stock exchange. Just like large buyers who do not look for farmers themselves, but know a broker to whom they turn.