Brazilian pork producers have seen exports to Russia more than double since January as Russia works to replace Western food imports banned in a tit-for-tat response to sanctions earlier this year, according to a statement posted on the website of the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA).
Over 46 percent of all Brazilian pork exports went to Russia this year, according to statements made by association vice president Francisco Turra late last week. Sales to Russia accounted for almost 61 percent of Brazilian exporters profits, he said.
Between January and November, Brazil sold $766.3 million worth of pork to Russia, a 101.5 percent increase compared with the same period last year.
Russia in August imposed a one-year ban on imports of meat, fruit, vegetables, milk and dairy imports worth about $9 billion annually from countries that had leveled sanctions against it over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis. The ban has seen Moscow seek out alternative suppliers in Latin America, Asia and former Soviet states, as well as push for more domestic agricultural development.
On Monday, Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov told news agency TASS that Russia has found alternative suppliers to replace nearly 100 percent of the products affected by the food ban.? ?
In the meantime Russia's inflation rate has soared above 9 percent, driven in large part by rising food prices. Meat price inflation has led the pack, with pork prices rising 27 percent and the cost of poultry jumping 25 percent since January, according to Fyodorov.