Pork situation in Russia 🇷🇺

A Russian, a Brazilian and a Chilean pig walk into a bar… Bad joke? The situation in Russia with pork imports and the national production is bad, too. The country is in for a problem of oversupply in the pork market.

• African Swine Fever (ASF) and avian influenza (AI) outbreaks in Russia have made things difficult for the meat production in the country and sent prices to the stratosphere, so the government has set a duty-free quota over pork imports to try and compensate for that on the domestic market. 

But! The problem is that global pork prices are up, Russian is down, and imports are not competitive in the market. So we present to you: oversupply, says Yury Kovalev, general director of the National Union of pork producers.

• Proof of the described problem is that, out of an approved quota of 100,000 tons of pork, only 10,000 have been imported in the first half of 2022 – all supplies have been delivered by Brazil and Chile.
• Kovalev: more domestic pork consumption looks like the only way out, but the demand might drop because the population’s pockets are not too deep in the current crisis. 
• Another part of the problem is also that Russian processing plants depend on ag technology that is produced in the EU and maintaining production could be an issue.