The battle for the "regionalization"

On January 20, the acting Head of Rosselkhoznadzor Nikolay Vlasov has signed the decision about establishment of the status of regions of the Russian Federation on infectious diseases of animals and displacement of goods controlled by veterinary inspection. The document restricts the flow of animals and other controlled goods (including raw milk) from regions where the disease was registered since February 1.

"We conducted a regionalization of the territory of Russia in de-jure for 31 contagious diseases of animals, and de-facto for the four diseases: African swine fever, contagious nodular dermatitis, anthrax, and foot and mouth disease. The remaining 27 are exotic diseases for Russia as a whole, and no restrictions for them in the Decision, as all the regions of Russia have the same favorable status for them," said Mr. Vlasov.

In a local sense, regionalization is a formal establishment of the status of the regions on contagious diseases and measures to maintain the status. Globally it is a tool to maintain biosafety in the country and its export (in the field of animal production) potential.

The initiative was supported by many participants in the dairy industry, except... "Soyuzmoloko"

"Soyuzmoloko", the members of which are the largest processors of milk: Danone, PepsiCo, Valio, Hochland, wrote the appeal to the Minister of agriculture of the Russian Federation in which they asked to change the decision of Rosselkhoznadzor of January 20, 2017. "It (editor’s note - the decision of Rosselkhoznadzor) since February 1, assigns the regions the status for infectious animal diseases (African swine fever, foot and mouth disease, anthrax, etc.) and in accordance with them sets the rules of transportation of controlled goods. So, restrictions on shipment of raw milk to other regions was imposed on 25 subjects of the Russian Federation, including Tatarstan and Rostov region", - reads the letter.

According to the Rating of the Russian Dairy Research Center, Tatarstan produces about 1 172 400 tons of raw milk, meanwhile, it processes only 795 000 tons. Tatarstan topped the rating of Russian regions that experience a shortage of processing capacities, which means that most of raw milk is exported from the region.

The main purpose of the letter of "Soyuzmoloko" is to inform the Ministry of agriculture that the Decision of Rosselkhoznadzor means a stop of the supply of raw milk of the regions where there are contagious diseases, due to the lack of equipment for pasteurization. This in its turn will lead to higher prices.

Mr. Vlasov has commented on the letter: "The Decision came into force since 01.01.17. Where and what has stopped? If something has stopped somewhere, for what reason?»

I will not even ask about the increase of prices: Soyuzmoloko wants very much to raise prices... under any pretext. Certification will increase prices, regionalization will increase prices, the problem with subsidies – prices will go up. What can we do? Capitalism is in the yard, and still the people have the right to want."

The Decision about "regionalization" has received public publicity due to the letter of "Soyuzmoloko". What will win: the fear of the largest processors or Rosselhoznadzor?

The DairyNews is watching the developments.

Read full article in Russian on DairyNews.ru