Russian seed imports fall more than 50% in 2024 - AgMin

MOSCOW. Feb 4 (Interfax) - Russian imports of agricultural crop seeds fell by more than 50% in 2024, Deputy Agriculture Minister Marina Afonina said during a meeting at the Federation Council on Tuesday.

"According to preliminary estimates, seed imports decreased by more than half in 2024 compared to 2023, almost by 2.5 times. This indicates that our agricultural producers are indeed switching to domestic seeds and that we are moving towards import substitution," Afonina said.

"We need to establish a unified set of figures and a common framework" in these statistics, the head of the Federation Council Committee on Agriculture and Food Policy and Environmental Management Alexander Dvoinykh said. "Because we see different numbers in various documents, and given the importance of the tasks at hand, we would like to rely on accurate and precise data," he said.

As reported, Russia has employed a quota to limit seed imports for two years in a row, primarily from unfriendly countries, in order to support domestic seed producers. The quota is set at 18,300 tonnes in 2025.

According to a study conducted by the seed breeding company Rusid in collaboration with the agricultural magazine Pole.RF, the share of Russian soybean seeds increased from 43.5% in 2022 to 47.1% in 2023 and reached 50% in 2024. The share of Russian sunflower seeds grew from 23% to 29.6% and then to 44%, while corn seeds increased from 41.8% to 45.5% and 48%, respectively.

The study also showed that compared to 2023, imports of corn seeds decreased almost 83%, sunflower seeds fell 56.5%, and potato seeds 97.1% in 2024. At the same time, the import quotas set for 2024 were not fully utilized for most crops.

At the All-Russian Agronomic Conference held in January, Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut urged Russian farmers who remain skeptical about domestically bred seeds to stop resisting their use.