90% of insurance payments to livestock breeders fall on losses from infectious diseases

For 2023, 38% of the total livestock is insured in RUSSIA - this is 11.7 million conditional heads of animals, according to the National Union of Agricultural Insurers (NUA). According to the union, since 2021, the percentage of insured livestock has increased by 8%, now 69 regions of the country are covered by insurance.

According to the NSA, livestock breeders insure pigs most often - now 65% of the livestock in the country, or 15.7 million heads, are insured. In second place in terms of insurance is poultry - 55% of the livestock, or 225 million heads. But large and small cattle are covered by insurance by only 12% and 5%, respectively. In many respects, such a spread can be associated with the frequency of outbreaks of infectious diseases at enterprises - the situation with African swine fever and highly pathogenic avian influenza in the world is tense.

The vast majority of payments for insured livestock come from losses due to outbreaks of dangerous diseases, according to the NSA. An enterprise in the Pskov region that suffered from African swine fever received the largest payment in two years - pig farmers were paid 539 million rubles. Recall that when ASF is infected, all pigs that have fallen into the affected area are seized and destroyed, and at large enterprises the bill can go to tens of thousands of heads. In the Stavropol Territory, a poultry enterprise received a payment of 102 million rubles after the death of a turkey population from bird flu. Among enterprises engaged in cattle breeding, the largest payment was received by an enterprise in the Bryansk region - 86 million rubles were received by livestock breeders after the death of cattle from pasteurellosis.