Russia aims to become top 5 pork exporter by 2030 - AgMin

MOSCOW. Dec 6 (Interfax) - Russia hopes to become a top 5 pork exporter by 2030, Deputy Agriculture Minister Andrei Razin said at the Pig Breeding 2022 conference in Moscow.

"The prospects are very good, we have already stopped talking about domestic supply and we are starting to talk very seriously about increasing exports," Razin said. "We are saying our meat supplies to foreign markets should at least double over the next five to seven years, but overall, by 2030, we are quite ambitiously setting ourselves the goal of becoming one of the five largest pork exporters," he said.

This is "a completely tangible goal, because we really have learned to cope with big challenges," and the sector has built some good momentum, he said.

Razin said it was possible to achieve those plans while ensuring pig breeding biosecurity, primarily by protecting against African swine fever. "Unfortunately, we are facing this problem this year as well. It is already snowing, and the ASF problem is not going away. And this suggests that every year the issue of biosecurity is becoming more and more relevant, turning from a seasonal factor to problem that we have to contend with throughout the year," he said.

"It has to be said that in a global context our domestic producers are not coping so badly [with ASF] but there is still a problem, and we should definitely not relax," Razin said.

The National Union of Pig Breeders says Russia exported a record 200,000 tonnes of pork in 2020. It exported 128,700 tonnes, including pig fat and offal, in January-September 2022, down from 152,200 tonnes a year previously.