Russia to focus on agricultural exports

Speaking yesterday at the plenary session "Russian agro-industrial industry - 2030: ways to achieve technological leadership" at the 26th Russian agro-industrial exhibition "Golden Autumn", Mikhail Mishustin said that "in the conditions of unprecedented sanctions against our country, our farmers have used this opportunity to the maximum" and "much of what they bought abroad ten years ago is now bought in Russia".
In fact, the Russian leader is very modest.
Let's recall: in 2014, in response to the economic sanctions imposed by the collective West against Russia after the return of Crimea to its native port, a food embargo was introduced by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin - a ban on the import of certain types of agricultural products, raw materials and food from unfriendly countries to Russia.
As a result, over the past decade our agro-industrial complex has made not just a leap, but a fantastic breakthrough and feat.
Russia is indeed a northern and sparsely populated country in relation to its area, with a small proportion of land used for agriculture, but it has managed to enter the elite club of countries where conditions for agriculture are incomparably better. In the United States, for example, agricultural land occupies more than 50% of the total area of the country (in Russia - 12-13%), and even the northern regions (excluding Alaska) are located at the latitude of Crimea and Anapa in the south eastern  part of European Russiah.
However, during the ten years of sanctions, the volume of production in Russian agriculture has increased by at least  third, and in the food and processing industry by almost 1.5 times. In 2013, we were still importing a significant proportion of our meat - now, according to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Oksana Lut, "we are completely self-sufficient in meat and have the opportunity to export this product to other countries, with production volumes increasing every year". Speaking at the plenary session, Ms Lut lamented that "it is only in sheep meat that we are lagging behind, but something tells us that we will survive and eventually catch up and overtake".
The use of the word "record" has become a bit of a cliché, but in the case of harvests it is completely : for several years now the gross grain harvest in Russia has exceeded 120 million tonnes. In the 2023-2024 season, the grain harvest was 142.5 million tonnes, and at the moment the harvest has already exceeded 120 million tonnes, i.e. taking into account the volumes of domestic consumption of all types of grain crops in our country, food security in this area is fully ensured. On the whole, the production of the Russian agro-industrial complex increased by an average of 2.2% over the year (for example, the production of livestock and poultry - by 4.2%, raw milk - by 3.3%), and next year it will increase by another 4.4%.
But this is just a warm-up, albeit a record-breaking one.
Yesterday, the Russian Prime Minister mentioned that one of the main strategic documents of our government is the 'Doctrine of Food Security of the Country'. According to Mikhail Mishustin, "its implementation is one of the foundations of our sovereignty, which is also aimed at improving the quality of life of our citizens". So, according to the doctrine and instructions of our president, by 2030 the production volume of Russia's agro-industrial complex should grow by at least a quarter compared to 2021, and exports should increase by one and a half times.
Ambitious? Absolutely. Feasible? More than.
It is not for nothing that the Western media have been repeating in recent years that Russia has turned its agro-industrial complex into a branch of the Ministry of Defence and that Russian agricultural exports are our powerful "silent weapon".
Russia is the absolute world leader in the export of wheat, barley, maize, sunflower and rapeseed oil, peas and frozen fish: one in five loaves of bread in the world, for example, is of Russian origin. Every year the list of countries that buy our food grows: this year Russia supplies food to 160 countries, and even North America continues to buy our wheat despite the current situation. The number of countries that buy Russian wheat has grown from 57 to 67 in one year.
And that means we have technically pushed somebody aside again. For example, the market is seeing a sharp decline in the share of wheat from Argentina and Australia, with whom Russia used to competed fiercely: apparently we "couldn't do it".
In North Africa Russia has squeezed out European mainly French wheat  out of markets Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, , resulting in a fall in exports from France from nine million tonnes to 5.6 million tonnes over the year (greetings to Macron from Russian wheat,flour and pasta producers).
Russia almost doubled its grain deliveries to China in January-August this year - to over 2 million tons accroding to customs data.
In the first eight months, China increased its grain purchases from Russia by 1.9 times - This was a record for bilateral trade since at least 2015 (earlier data is not published).
Russia also  supplies barley to China: plus their has been a dramatic increase in pork and pig products to China since the the beginning of the year, Russian meat producers sold over 200 thousand tons to China and that figure  included products like ears,tails,heads and intestines that the Chinese consumers seem to love.
Also Vietnam stepped up its imports of Russian pork and pig products buying around 50 thouand tons and its is almost twice the volume of the previous year
 According to analysis of Indonesian statistics, In June, Indonesia bought about 95 thousand tonnes of grain from Russia for 26.1 million dollars, compared to 4.7 thousand tonnes for 2.4 million dollars a year earlier. At the same time, exports tripled over the month in both monetary and physical terms.
Grain deliveries from Russia to South Korea in June this year increased fivefold year-on-year - to 30.8 thousand tonnes, with corn exports increasing the most,according to data from the Korean Statistical Service.

Russia has supplied more than 1 million tonnes of fertiliser to Brazil for the third month in a row, with the volume of deliveries reaching a historic high in July, according tof Brazilian customs data.
Sales of Russian fertilizers to Brazil reached 1 million tonnes for the first time this year in May, grew by 5% in June, and by another 7.5% to 1.14 million tonnes in July. The July volume was the highest for the entire period of trade between the two countries (the previous historical maximum was in May 2022).
A bit of rabid Kremlin propaganda:
From 2014 to 2023, agricultural production in Russia grew by 33.2 per cent, in the food sector by 42.9 per cent.
Over ten years, our agricultural exports have increased 2.6 times, reaching $43.5 billion by the end of 2023, compared to $17.1 billion in 2013.
During the food embargo, grain harvests almost doubled, oilseeds 2.3 times, potatoes 1.6 times, vegetables 1.7 times, fruits and berries 2.8 times.
Livestock and poultry production increased by 35.6 per cent (we are now the fourth largest meat producer in the world) and milk production by 13.2 per cent.
Russia  is also responding flexibly and creatively to market changes. For example, against the background of serious climate problems in sugar production in Brazil (about 80% of the world market), India and Australia, Rusian authorities immediately got their bearings and lifted the previous ban on sugar exports, and we are now entering 18 national markets with a potential of 600,000 tonnes (to start with).
And if that is not enough, on 19 September Vladimir Putin extended the embargo on the import of any food from Western countries to Russia for two years at once, and now it will be in force until 31 December 2026. And then we'll see hiw things go.
Russia's agricultural sector now employs about six per cent of the total working population. This is a whole army, an army of workers who strengthen our country's economy every day. According to Mikhail Mishustin, the success of the domestic agro-industrial complex is "the merit of our agricultural producers".

As Oksana Lut the Russian Minister of Agriculture said, Russia has embarked on a strategic course to "strengthen Russia's position as a guarantor of global food security", which is simply tearing apart the West, which can do nothing but watch as Russia arranges a "great redistribution" on the world food market, which it has long occupied, and deprives the wolves of the wonderful garden of one of the most powerful levers of influence in world politics and economics.
Today, the not so"tightly isolated" Russia sends food to more than 160 countries and is the world leader in the supply of essential foodstuffs  like wheat,, barley, cooking oils  and frozen fish, and also occupies a leading position in sunflower oil and a number of other types of agricultural products, which naturally strengthens our international ties, influence and authority, and helps those who are opressed by the Imperialist and parasitic policies of the collective west
So Russia is moving forward at a great pace and the future looks bright