Food imports to the Russian market have nearly halved since the food embargo was introduced by Russia a year ago, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev was quoted as saying by the ministry press service at the Day of Harvest 2015 celebration in the Rostov region.
“In 2014, $41 billion in food was imported, by our estimates, by the end of 2015 this will be $25 billion,” he said.
The government’s import substitution and increased state support program helped Russian agriculture to preserve growth, which in 2014 was 3.7 percent, and in the first half of 2015 was 2.9 percent. Production of meat and meat products grew 6 percent, fish 9 percent, and fish processing volumes grew 5 percent.
Imports which fell under the Russian embargo have been replaced by products from CIS countries, Latin America, and Asia, Tkachev said. Meat from the European Union, United States, and Australia has been replaced with products from Brazil, Belarus, Paraguay and Argentina. Norwegian and European fish has been replaced by products from Iceland, China, Chile and the Faroe Islands.
Belarus has practically fully replaced European imports of dairy products, having almost doubled its share of overall import volumes to 86 percent.
Vegetable imports from Turkey, Belarus, Egypt, Iran and Azerbaijan have increased as well as potatoes from Ecuador, Belarus, Turkey, Egypt, Serbia and Pakistan.
On Aug. 6 Russia extended the food embargo for one year, until Aug. 5, 2016 for food products from the U.S., EU, Canada, Norway, and Australia.
In accordance with the Russian presidential decree of July, 2015, embargoed products which are imported into Russia under false certificates are subject to destruction.
The growth in smuggling agricultural products has created a threat of potentially dangerous food of unknown origins or quality hitting store shelves, the Agriculture Ministry said. Additionally, the contraband has caused economic damage to Russian agricultural production and “sapped motivation from domestic agriculture producers who had to compete with unscrupulous vendors,” it said.
According to Tkachev, Rosselkhoznadzor, the Federal Customs Service (FCS), and the Russian Federal Supervision Agency for Customer Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), will not need to destroy large amounts “as soon as the smugglers understand that the government is intercepting any possible sanctioned products, they will stop sending them to Russia,” he said.
“These measures will be varied, Rosselkhoznadzor already has reported that the volume of illegal imports has gone down 90 percent,” he said.
For the year since the start of the food embargo, according to the FCS, more than 26,000 tonnes of banned food has been seized.
