Summing up 2015 from The DairyNews Chief Editor Michael Mishchenko

Event of the year – abolition of milk quotas in EU

2015 was full of events – good, bad, sad and happy. In 2015 The DairyNews hold several own events – VII Dairy Olympics in Israel and IV All-Russian Rally “Way for Milk” in Ural.

In 2015 we destroyed cheese with dozers, struggled with fake products, prolonged the embargo, took part in World Dairy Summit. But abolition of milk quotas in EU is the most important event of 2015 which influenced international and Russian dairy markets. It was a long-planned step of the EU government aimed at increase of competiveness of local dairy industry on the global market and strengthening of export potential of European producers.

Europe prepared to put end to milk quotas long ago – 5 years before this event more than 5.5 billion euro was invested into construction and modernization of processing facilities, a great informational work was implemented among farmers. But due to Russian food embargo and drop of Chinese demand European dairy market and the global market next to it (including Russian one) faced big troubles.

In anticipation of milk production increase within a few percent limits EU agrarian functionaries didn’t expect that this trend will coincide with serious demand decrease. The result – price drop, dissatisfaction with government policy, wide-scale bankruptcies of producers in some EU countries – for instance in the Baltics – and general dairy market stagnation in the world. On the New Zealand Global Dairy Trade during almost all 2015 the price indexes were dramatically low. However according to a number of international dairy industry experts’ opinion EU solves the situation with honour and dignity in spite of everything.

What was the impact of quotas abolition for the Russian market? First of it brought one of the factors which influence raw milk price decrease. Multinational companies and many local companies in an attempt to diffuse the impact of consumer demand drop continue to use actively milk powder and some of them – milk fat and protein substitutes.

So in spite of the “embargo” and numerous estimates raw milk price doesn’t increase, what is not a bad news for the market as far as it  makes us be more effective.

Company of the year – Agricultural Complex named after N.I. Tkachyov

There is only one reason to rank this holding like this – the company became the biggest milk producer in Russia leaving behind the former leader EkoNiva. Today the enterprise produces 226.3 thousand tons of milk per year or 620 tons per day. Its milking herd totals 26.5 thousand cows, average milk yield exceeds 8.5 tons of milk per cow per day.

Official of the year – Alexander Tkachyov

Alexander Tkachyov joined the farm beau-monde vigorously but unexpectedly. Tkachyov’s nomination for the post of Minister of Agriculture was accompanied with dissatisfied commentaries of market participants. Some said (not always aloud) that Russia is going to become Stanitsa Kushchyovskaya. But according to the Center for the Study of Dairy Market of "The DairyNews", during Tkachyov period Krasnodar Region shows good dynamics of dairy sector development.

Aleksander Tkachyov has already proven himself to be a person who understands business, takes serious decisions and puts interesting proposals.

In 2015 Alexander Tkachyov promised to separate dairy products from milk containing, started struggle against fake products, initiated distortion of imported counterfeit, proposed to limit the number of animals in private farm holdings and opened discussion of interventions on milk powder products market.

Read more