The agriculture Ministry is betting on exports

The Ministry of agriculture issued a public discussion of changes in the state program of agriculture development for 2013-2020. As explained in the Ministry, changes are made "in accordance with the Federal budget and the consolidation of subsidies". In other words, the parameters stored in the program initially, are now adjusted based on actual funds available. Under the consolidation of subsidies they mean that instead of the previously existing 54 subprograms the state support now is distributed among seven priority subprograms. They are dairy and beef cattle farming, production of grain, vegetables, fruits and berries, the development of irrigation and support for small farms (farming).

— We identified the priorities of the state agrarian policy, the implementation of which since 2017 will allow us to achieve rapid import substitution and to ensure the growth of export potential through the promotion of production of main kinds of agricultural products, — told in the Ministry of agriculture.

As it follows from the explanatory note to the draft, by 2020, the cost of the program will be reduced 1.7 times compared to the originally planned amount. So, this year costs from more than 300 billion rubles will be reduced to 215.8 billion rubles. Total budget of the program until 2020 will be 586,074 billion rubles instead of 996,2 billion rubles, provided in the previous version of the document.

The Ministry of agriculture has also adjusted the indicators of the level of self-sufficiency of Russia with agricultural products, but only slightly — by a tenth of a percent (for example, the country will have to produce 99.3% of the required amount of grain instead of 99.7%).

The term "import substitution", under the flag of which agriculture has been developed for the last few years, is proposed to be excluded from many sections of the program. So, in the new version of the program doesn’t have such a goal as "ensuring food independence of Russia in the parameters of the doctrine of food security and accelerated import substitution of milk, vegetables, seed potatoes and fruit products." Instead, it is only "providing the population with safe agricultural products and foodstuffs", without specifying whether it should be domestic.

But in priority programs there is a new goal appeared — "Export of agricultural products". For the implementation of this new subprogram 728.4 million rubles is expected to be allocated till 2020.

Earlier, the Minister of agriculture Alexander Tkachev said that in 2016, the exports of domestic agricultural products amounted to about $17 billion (4% more than in 2015). The increase was provided due to the increase of deliveries of grain, vegetable oil and fish abroad. The Minister expects that by 2020 the export volume will increase to $25 billion a year.

Executive Director of Fat and Oil Union Mikhail Maltsev believes a reversal of the state program from import substitution towards the export market to be absolutely logical, but suggests at first to assess export opportunities in each category.

— As it happened on the sugar market this year: we spend our lives focused on domestic consumption, were protected by floating duties on raw sugar imports, which supported the domestic price level. And this year we produced more sugar than it can be consumed, and we are forced to export. But there the price of sugar is lower than in our country. And no one is waiting for us with our sugar there, — said the expert.

In his opinion, in those industries where Russia has no large export potential, increased import substitution can have the opposite effect for the industry: prices for products can fall, and this will lead to bankruptcy of agricultural producers.

In his turn, the leader of the Dairy Union of Russia Arkadiy Ponomarev is outraged by the reduction of budget expenditures for development of the agroindustrial complex (AIC).

In his opinion, due to the cancellation of the priority of import substitution, the country may become dependent on imports again.

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