Russia's food production not compensating for sanctions

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 07 Dec 2020 by Alex Teddy

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On December 7 the National Rating Agency published a report on Russia's import substitution policy with regard to food. The report concluded that the government's policies have had little success. The government had hoped for an agricultural boom. Indeed Russian farmers have done well but have not made the most of the opportunities offered to them.In 2014 the EU imposed sanctions on Russia over Crimea. Russia riposted with counter sanctions on most EU food products. The government hoped that Russian farming would produce enough food to ensure that imports from the EU were not missed. Domestic farming has been only semi-successful at this. Re-exporting from third countries has been part of Russia's solution. That means a country buys an EU product, repackages it as ''made in X country'' and sells it to Russia. Belarus has done this a lot. 77% of Russia's dairy imports come from Belarus. It was 43% in 2013. Meats from Belarus have gone up from 12% to 32% since 2013. Some of these ''Belarussian'' products are in fact repackaged EU products. Food imports were falling even before 2014. Sanctions speeded up this process. The country has never met the government's targets for food production. Dairy imports are 20% down since 2013. The government wanted it to be 30% down. Vegetables are 27% as against a 70% target. Chile and the Faroe Islands sell a great deal of fish to Russia. Norway used to be the main source for foreign fish in Russia. Some of the ''Chilean'' fish is actually Norwegian. Norway is a NATO but not an EU country and has sanctions on Russia. Ecuador sells EU fruit to Russia by calling it Ecuadorean fruit. China does the same with vegetables. 21% of imported veg...