Growth of agricultural production in Russia in 2015 to slow to 1.3%-1.4% - Tkachev
SOCHI. Oct 2 (Interfax) - The growth of agricultural production in Russia this year will amount to 1.3%-1.4%, Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev forecast.
"Despite all the difficulties that the sector encountered, the rates of production as a whole are maintaining positive dynamics, but they will be lower than last year, and are preliminarily estimated at 1.3%-1.4%," Tkachev told Interfax on the sidelines of the Sochi Economic Forum.
Last year agricultural production in Russia rose by 3.7%.
Tkachev said that in January-August agricultural production rose by 1.8%.
The minister confirmed the forecast for the grain harvest this year at 100 million tonnes (it was 105.3 million tonnes in 2014).
"And the harvest of sugar beets will increase to 37.5 million tonnes [33.5 million tonnes in 2014], oil-bearing crops - to 13.9 million tonnes [13.8 million]," he said. "Also slight growth in the harvest of vegetables is expected, and the gross harvest of potatoes will be level with last year," he said.
In 2014 farmers harvested 15.5 million tonnes of vegetables and 31.5 million tonnes of potatoes.
"So for grain and vegetable and seed oil we will fully be covered with our own production and will have export potential, but for potatoes the level of self-supply is 99.1%, vegetables - 90.1%, sugar - 92.3%," the agriculture minister said.
According to his forecast, the positive performance will be maintained also for livestock. So, the production of livestock and poultry will grow by almost 4% to 13.4 million tonnes. "Moreover poultry production will maintain much higher rates of growth - 7%, the growth in pork production may amount to 3.3%," he said. "However, as it was in earlier years, the production of cattle will remain in the "minus" but this gap will be reduced to 0.5%."
Tkachev said that milk production may stabilize at the level of last year, which was 30.8 million tonnes. The growth of the production of eggs is forecast at 1.5% to 42.5 billion eggs.
Therefore, the agriculture minister said, the Russia's own pork production will provide for 93.3%, poultry - 96% and beef - 75.4%.
