Canada’s hog industry has calmly received Russia’s recent announcement that it plans to become self sufficient in pork.
Russian first deputy prime minister Viktor Zubkov warned the world’s pork producers two weeks ago that his country is “quite capable of providing ourselves with poultry meat and pork (within two years)” and can become a competitor on the world market.
However, Canada Pork International executive director Jacques Pomerleau said it’s nothing to get worked up about.
“Everybody can have all sorts of objectives in life,” he said.
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“It’s hard to assess how close they can come to their objective.”
Ron Plain of the University of Missouri was similarly blasé.
“I’m sure that’s a long term goal for them,” Plain said.
“It’s very tough to do. …. There’s a reason they have been importing lots of meats for a number of years, and it’s because of some of the problems and constraints with their ability to feed themselves. Making these constraints go away overnight isn’t going to be easy.”
Russia, which produced six million tonnes of meat last year but consumed nine million, has been a major market for Canadian and U.S. pork producers. In 2008, Russia bought 130,000 tonnes of Canadian pork, worth $290 million, which was more than 10 percent of Canada’s 1.1 million tonnes in export sales worth $2.7 billion.
American pork exports to Russia plummeted in January and February this year, down 49 percent in volume and 57 percent in value.
However, North American analysts aren’t surprised by the plunge and don’t see the cause being stronger pork production in Russia.
“I suspect we’ll see the situation this year in which, because of low oil prices, they’ll be buying less pork,” Plain said.
“Oil prices have collapsed, and they don’t have money to buy much of anything.”
Russia’s goal of increasing pork production is possible.
It is an immense country, despite the loss of many former Soviet territories. It produces huge amounts of feed grains for livestock.
“It’s obvious Russia has the potential to produce and export in the future,” Pomerleau said.
“They have the know-how, they have the feed, they have the land. It’s possible.”
Plain is also not surprised by Russia’s plans.
“Food is one of those things that countries don’t like to import,” he said.
“Most countries with a lot of land tend to think in terms of food self-sufficiency.”
However, Russian leaders are given to making grand announcements, and its goal to quickly provide all its food needs has an air of déjàvu.
“This isn’t the first time they’ve said this,” Plain said.
“Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, they’ve always said their goal was to increase their production to reduce their reliance on imported food. It’s probably not likely.”
In Soviet times, Russia produced far more pork than it does now, but the economic collapse following the end of communism shattered its livestock industry.
Pomerleau said Russia’s future emergence as an exporter wouldn’t necessarily end Canadian sales to the country.
Russia now mainly buys trimmings and other low-grade cuts of pork. If it becomes an exporter, it might change its spectrum of purchases or might continue to buy the same products and export others.
For example, Canada imports ribs but exports hams.
“The fact that they could possibly become a large producer and exporter does not mean that they would not import,” Pomerleau said.
If Russia wants to become a major pork exporter, he said, it will first have to develop a credible quality and safety certification system that foreign buyers would accept
That wasn’t easy for advanced nations like Canada to achieve and won’t be easy for problem-plagued Russia.
