Grain exports are expected to double by 2020 and the country will be producing enough pork and poultry to be a net exporter of both meats, First Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Korolev said Wednesday at a food conference in New York.
Annual grain shipments will total 40 million to 45 million tons, compared with about 20 million now. The increase will require a jump in cultivated land of about 5 million hectares, he said. Russia expects to export 400,000 tons of poultry by 2020, compared with imports of 350,000 tons now, Korolev said. As recently as 2006, the country was importing 1.5 million tons. In the last five years, Russia has invested in more than 400 facilities for poultry farms, he said.
"Our priority task is to substitute these imports by domestic production," Korolev said. "We are interested to increase the import of investment in Russia, rather than the import of food." Pork-meat imports are now 500,000 tons a year, he said. By 2020, the country will be exporting about 200,000 tons, he said.
(Bloomberg)
