500 billion rubles has been invested in dairy farming in Russia since 2014 - Artem Belov

He reminded that since 2014, the situation in dairy farming has been favorable – farmers began to earn, company owners made a profit, new investors appeared. The growth rate of the industry was about 3.5% annually, and in 2019 they reached 4%, or 700-800 thousand tons of milk per year.

In total, milk production has increased from about 18 to 23 million tons of milk per year since 2014. At the same time, self-sufficiency in raw milk was 83-84%.

However, over the past two years, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. According to Artem Belov's calculations, the cost of raw milk production for 2020 and 2021 increased by 25%, while prices for these products increased by only 12-15%.

The volume of state support remained, however, due to the increase in the Central Bank's key rate, the availability of loans decreased.

At the same time, according to Artem Belov, medium and small enterprises will remain the drivers for the time being due to the inertia of the market. ‘Due to the fact that the market situation has changed now, it leads to the idea that it is necessary to change approaches to how dairy farming should be developed,’ concluded Artem Belov.