Ministry of Agriculture: it is important to decouple domestic prices from world prices

The authorities will not allow a food shortage in RUSSIA, the Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev said on the air of the Rossiya-1 TV channel. it is also important to prevent price spikes. “We live in an era of crisis, food prices are rising every day and it is important to decouple our domestic prices from those prices that are present on world markets,” the HEAD of the agricultural department stressed.

Patrushev also drew attention to the fact that prices in the Russian market are more stable than in the world. Nevertheless, prices for vegetables and potatoes are growing strongly, prices for MEAT products are rising, so the Ministry of Agriculture will increase state support for these industries, including working with retail chains, the minister assured.

Earlier, during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and the government, Patrushev said that in the event of a noticeable increase in world prices for wheat - up to $400 per ton or more - the formula for calculating the floating EXPORT duty would be revised upwards. The same applies to oilseeds and sunflower oil. In addition, in order to meet the needs of the domestic market in the first half of 2022, it is planned to introduce a tariff quota for the export of grain and, separately, for wheat.

The Ministry of Agriculture is also developing a federal project to increase the production of vegetables and potatoes, as well as organizing the infrastructure for their storage and sale. In particular, since more than half of this product in Russia is grown in household plots, next year they will be able to count on state support for the first time. In addition, the department intends to work out the issue of switching retail chains to long-term contracts with producers of vegetables and potatoes.

To support the processing industry and stabilize prices for the meat group, the Ministry of Agriculture proposed in 2022 to establish a tariff exemption for imports of up to 100,000 tons of frozen pork and up to 200,000 tons of frozen beef. This decision was considered and supported by the subcommittee on customs-tariff and non-tariff regulation. The decrease in meat production this year, in particular, is due to the unfavorable epizootic situation. However, according to the agency's forecast, pork output will recover in the first half of next year. For poultry meat, according to the results of 2021, it is expected to reach the indicators of last year, for beef, the ministry expects an increase of 1.5%.

FAO predicts record global food import prices 

In October, world food prices increased by 3% compared to September and reached a maximum since July 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported earlier. In October, the average value of the FAO Food Price Index, which monitors fluctuations in world food prices on a monthly basis, was 133.2 points.