Lyudmila Manitskaya: Further increase in milk production is predicted this year

At the beginning of her speech, the speaker spoke about the impact of two powerful negative factors in 2020-2021: the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which adversely affected the economy, as well as the collapse in oil prices. The ruble has significantly devalued, and by November 2020, the dollar was worth 80.5 rubles, and the euro - 94 rubles. The Government and the Bank of Russia have consistently introduced several packages of measures to support the economy and citizens. Several factors have emerged in response to the pandemic:

– the closure of a number of countries for quarantine and a decrease in external demand;  

– the decline in consumer demand in the Russian Federation, which was already low; 

– suspense in supply of components from abroad;  

– leaving the country by foreign specialists who provided equipment maintenance; 

– waiting for further spread of the infection and response of various countries 

– a sharp slowdown in economic development, which reduced the availability of financial resources. If we talk about enterprises, those that were dependent on imported equipment were particularly affected. 

Lyudmila Manitskaya clarified that the enterprises took advantage of warehouse stocks and they managed not to raise prices, so the products for the consumer were in the usual assortment.

- The pandemic has worsened the state of consumer demand. We are losing a consumer who tried to stock up on long-term storage products, and after all, sales of dairy products are also an indicator of consumer demand,’ the speaker said.

Speaking about general indicators, Lyudmila Manitskaya noted that gross milk production in Russia in 2020 was 32.2 million tons. In absolute terms, the increase was 865 thousand tons, i.e. 2.5%. In the last three years, there has been a sufficient growth of about 2.5% per year. The level of 32.2 million tons was in 2000, then it was repeated in 2008, and the maximum of 2002 - 33.5 million tons - was never reached, and in the coming years, taking into account very confident growth rates, it will not be broken. This year, milk production is projected to increase further to 32.6 million tons. Growth may continue, but with a slowdown of 1.25%.

The Director of the Dairy Union cited statistics by region: for 2020, the Volga Federal District is the leader in the production of raw milk, almost 9 million tons of milk was produced there. The Central District - 6.3 million tons; the Siberian District - almost 5 million tons. In addition, the Southern Federal District is in fourth place - 3.8 million tons, although this region is the leader in productivity.

The speaker highlighted certain regions that are leading in production among the districts: Voronezh region - more than 1 million tons; the Altai Republic - 1.2 million tons; Krasnodar region - 1.5 million tons, and the Republic of Bashkortostan produced the most - 1.7 million tons. These four regions together made up a fifth of the all-Russian production.

Summing up the results of statistics, Lyudmila Manitskaya divided producers by categories of farms: agricultural organizations produced about 18 million tons of milk from 32.2 million tons, or 56%. The remaining share belongs to private farms - 2.9 million tons or 9%, personal subsidiary farms - 11.5 million tons or 35%. The share of agricultural organizations is growing by 1-2% per year due to a decrease in the share of personal subsidiary farms by almost 2%, and the share of personal subsidiary farms remains almost unchanged and is growing by about 0.5%. That is, the changes in the structure, according to the speaker, are insignificant.