Vladimir Putin: Russian agriculture is not "Soviet collective farms"

According to him, Russia's imposition of a food embargo in 2014 was a risky move. “In general, our critics and skeptics said that we would generally be left without the necessary range of food products and without food as such. But this did not happen, but what happened was quite the opposite of the expectations of those ill-wishers who did not wish us well,” the president said. Domestic agricultural producers have entered the free market with their products, and their quality is higher than that of Western ones. “Because from the very beginning, from the very first steps, we began to pay special attention to standards in the field of ecology and food quality,” Putin said. Since Soviet times, all domestic food standards and norms have been much higher than in the EU countries, he compared.

The HEAD of state also recalled that Russian agricultural exports have grown many times, its volumes are now “incomparable to what it was”, while imports , on the contrary, have decreased. “I won’t even list the nomenclature now, we bought [chicken] legs, in my opinion, almost 1.4 million tons or something like that, and now we are exporting and fighting for sales markets, including pork," TASS quoted Putin as saying .

According to the Federal Customs Service, in 2022 RUSSIA supplied agricultural raw materials and food to foreign markets for $41.3 billion, which is 14.8% more than in 2021, when, according to the updated information of the service, exports amounted to $35.96 billion. food and raw materials for its production in 2022 grew by 4.8% to $35.6 billion against $34 billion a year ago. Thus, our country has retained the status of a net food exporter.

According to RIA Novosti, the head of state also drew attention to the need to strive for 100% localization of production in Russia in critical areas. “Even if we have localized 90% of some equipment, the car will still not run if 10% is not enough,” Putin stressed, adding that this does not mean “that we should strive for 100% localization everywhere.”

“Where we see that it is possible to establish stable, good, stable and reliable relations with partners who really want to work with us, and work for the medium and longer term, we will definitely cooperate with these partners. We will not be limited exclusively to our territory. But in critical areas, of course, we must strive for full sovereignty,” Putin said.