Poultry production in Russia is falling: what are the reasons?

Analysts believe that the spring increase in chicken prices in 2024 is mainly caused by seasonal factors. Candidate of Veterinary Sciences Svetlana Shchepyotkina spoke about how the lack of vaccination against bird flu at poultry farms and problems with foreign vaccines can affect the reduction in poultry production in RUSSIA.

In the spring of 2024, prices for chicken - both wholesale and retail - are rising again. Is the decline in chicken production behind this?

Interlocutors among analytical agencies believe that the rise in prices is due to seasonality.

“Prices change due to rising costs and under the influence of seasonal factors. According to Rosstat, in the first quarter there were slight fluctuations in production due to the epidemiological situation, but not critical,” the INFOLine agency told the publication.

The chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development, member of the scientific council at the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Yuri Krupnov, has a different opinion:

“The price of chicken MEAT is a very good indicator of the economy. If the price of chicken, as recently happened with the price of eggs , rises, this suggests that cheerful reports about big victories in agriculture may be built on shaky foundations. In terms of a lot of parameters, primarily technological ones, including veterinary medicine, protection against diseases, genetic material, breeding, etc., everything is at a low level. You can report on percentages of GDP, growth in funding, etc., but it is important to understand that everything comes down to feed for poultry. Chicken is 60-70% of the feed we are talking about. There are problems with feed. Because little is produced of what constitutes the protein energy basis of feed. The optimal product for this is soy and soy protein. And in this regard, there are huge limitations in our market, despite all attempts to solve this issue with the help of crops such as rapeseed ormustard ​A special program of plant proteins for feed is needed. But no one is doing this; there is no person responsible for the plant protein program in the country. Science is belittled, scientists are more like lower-level civil servants and are divorced from the problems of agriculture, and agriculture goes on as usual, buying ready-made packaged technologies from others. “No matter what anyone says about the seasonal rise in meat prices, this price demonstrates the backwardness of agriculture and calls into question its prospects.” 

Earlier, Svetlana Silenina, HEAD of the Consumer Market direction at the INFOLine agency, said that meat production in Russia, according to preliminary results for 2023, increased by 5% and reached 3.6 million tons.

At a low technological level, veterinary medicine and vaccine production also do not flourish, noted Yuri Krupnov.

“Who in Russia is developing modern world-class veterinary vaccines? Our funding for this work is many times less than in developed countries,” said a member of the scientific council under the Russian Security Council.

In 2023, the Russian soybean harvest in farms of all categories amounted to 6.8 million tons, which was 3.7% higher than in 2022, Artyom Ivanov, head of the analytical agency Agroan, told the publication:

“Most of the soybeans are grown in agricultural enterprises (5.3 million tons), another 1.51 million tons were collected from peasant farms. The average soybean yield in 2023 was 19.2 centners per 1 hectare of harvested area. Farmers improved their yield indicators by 7.4% year on year. Gross harvests of green peas in farms of all categories in 2023 amounted to 131 thousand tons, which is 6.2% more than in 2022. The pea crop is harvested mainly in agricultural enterprises (95.8 thousand tons), the share of peasant farms and the population is 21.3 and 14.4 thousand tons, respectively. The main soybean growing regions are Amur region, Kursk region , Belgorod region. The main regions for growing peas are the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Belgorod Region, and the Republic of Mordovia.”

The INFOLine agency said that “the gross soybean harvest last year increased by 3.7% to 6.8 million tons against the backdrop of an increase in both the sown area (+4.6% to 3.6 million hectares) and yield (+ 7.4% to 19.2 c/ha). Soybeans in Russia are used mainly in the production of compound feed. More than 20% of soybeans are produced in the Amur region. Soybean imports are gradually declining amid rising domestic production. Russia is among the top 10 world exporters of soybean meal. In 2022, supplies abroad amounted to 586 thousand tons.”

The editor of the ZernoOnline portal, Tatyana Litvinenko, provided slightly different data, according to which the gross harvest of soybeans and peas in Russia decreased in 2023. However, according to the analyst, the harvest of other crops has increased.

“Gross harvest in 2023 and 2022: soybean – 6,826.0 and 6,003.1 thousand tons. Peas – 4,716.9 and 3,616.1 thousand tons.

Vetch (peas) and vetch mixtures – 103.4 and 138.0 thousand tons. Feed lupine for grain – 61.9 and 105.5 thousand tons,” said Tatyana Litvinenko.

While everything may be fine with the production of protein feed for poultry in Russia, there are still problems with the poultry population itself.

According to Rosstat, the total poultry population in Russia in 2023 compared to 2022 decreased by 4.6 million heads (0.9% by 2022), said epidemiologist, systems analyst, candidate of veterinary sciences Svetlana Shchepyotkina:

“Also , according to the information and analytical agency E-meat, the Russian poultry meat market developed unfavorably in 2023: over the year, production decreased, albeit slightly, by 0.1% to 5.3 million tons. The decline in poultry meat production was influenced by the tense situation in the border areas of the country; production costs at all stages of the production chain increased sharply against the backdrop of high import dependence. The rise in exchange rates has increased the cost of imported equipment and spare parts used in the industry by more than 30%. Parallel imports and logistics contributed to the rise in cost : from hatching eggs, feed ingredients and vaccines purchased abroad, to the costs of transporting poultry products to the consumer - for example, the cost of diesel fuel increased by 10% over the year. Personnel shortages forced the management of agricultural enterprises to increase salaries in order to attract workers to production. The state of the industry was also affected by the increase in the key rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to 16%, and in the poultry farming segment there is no preferential lending, so the increased rate deprived poultry farmers of the opportunity to take out commercial loans for the development and modernization of their enterprises, which would contribute to the growth of production. This is the reason for the increase in prices for broiler chicken carcasses in the wholesale market - by 20% over the year.”

According to the epidemiologist, the unfavorable epizootic situation also played a role.

“According to ROSSELKHOZNADZOR , in 2023, 75 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza were recorded in 29 regions of the country in our country,” noted Svetlana Shchepetkina. — According to the draft National Report on the implementation of the state program for agricultural development in 2023, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, there are outbreaks in 13 regions, where 6.2 million poultry heads were destroyed in outbreaks. At the same time, according to the veterinary rules for the fight against highly pathogenic avian influenza, approved by Order of the Ministry of Agriculture No. 158 of March 24, 2021, “for the prevention of AIV in farms (with the exception of poultry farms), specialists of the state veterinary service carry out vaccinationbirds with AIV vaccines according to the instructions for their use.” That is, birds at poultry farms are not vaccinated against AIV.”

The fact is that the RNA of highly pathogenic avian influenza is a segmented genome of 8 molecules that divide, multiply, mix with each other and mutate at a breakneck speed, and even low-pathogenic avian influenza can become highly pathogenic in the event of an incorrect mutation, the interlocutor said.

“A vaccine that contains a live virus , albeit a weakened one, can give an incorrect mutation, since live vaccines have such a property as reversion, when the virus they contain can, under some conditions, cause a disease or mutate and turn into a pathogenic form,” says Svetlana Shchepyotkina. “Perhaps this is exactly what the Ministry of Agriculture is afraid of.” But Russian scientists invented inactivated vaccines - with a killed virus - to prevent bird flu in the early 2000s. Yes, inactivated vaccines protect against the disease somewhat worse, but if you compare it with the risk of death of the entire livestock, then the safety of even 70-80% of the livestock is a huge achievement in the fight against a terrible epizootic. It is allowed to vaccinate the livestock of private farms with such vaccines. But the Ministry of Agriculture does not allow the livestock of poultry farms to be vaccinated even with inactivated vaccines. In the working group “Animal Husbandry and Plant Growing” of the Analytical Information Center of the Government of the Russian Federation, where I am an expert, discussions of veterinary rules were very heated, during which many experts substantiated the need for vaccination, but the Ministry of Agriculture did not change its position.”

There is a big problem with vital foreign vaccines, the specialist noted.

“The fact is that on September 1, 2023, Federal Law No. 317 of July 2, 2021 came into force. According to it, all foreign manufacturers must undergo inspections by Rosselkhoznadzor and receive a certificate of compliance with the requirements of the rules of good manufacturing practice (GMP), EAEU , approved by decision of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission dated November 3, 2016 N 77. Interestingly, the rules of good manufacturing practice production practices were developed abroad in the late 60s of the last century, introduced in veterinary medicine since 1992 and harmonized among many countries. For decades, all foreign manufacturers have submitted a GMP certificate to VGNKI when registering veterinary products. However, inspections of foreign manufacturers of VLP are carried out by Rosselkhoznadzor in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated December 3, 2015 No. 1314, that is, according to the rules that were developed in Russia before the EAEU and which, in a number of parameters, do not coincide with the requirements of foreign GMPs.

At the moment, according to the information system of Rosselkhoznadzor “Galen”, permission to enter into civil circulation has been received for only 32 out of more than 120 previously imported poultry vaccines,” noted the epidemiologist.

According to a study by the Center for Strategic Research of the Russian Federation on the topic “Analysis of the socio-economic effects of the procedure for introducing veterinary medicinal products into civil circulation in the Russian Federation”, published in August 2023, the consequences of the shortage of foreign vaccines for the prevention of chicken diseases ( Marek's disease , Gumboro disease, infectious bronchitis of chickens), losses in poultry meat could reach up to 3.54 million tons, or 21% lower than production volumes in 2022, added Svetlana Shchepyotkina.

“It should be noted that the above estimate is conservative, as it is based only on the reduction in weight gain. But according to independent poultry expert Eduard Mailyan, the true cost of an error in the vaccination scheme is an unpredictably high mortality rate and culling, secondary bacterial infections, antibiotic flows , a decrease in category, quality and safety of products, and a natural increase in prices for the consumer,” concluded the candidate of veterinary sciences .

Rosselkhoznadzor, in response to an editorial request, reported that “currently, 2 inactivated vaccines against highly pathogenic avian influenza are registered and produced in Russia: ARRIAH - AviFluVac produced by the Federal State Budgetary Institution “ARRIAH”; FLU PROTECT N5 produced by FKP Stavropol Biofactory. Currently, there is no significant shortage of vaccines against the most common and economically significant infectious diseases of birds. The poultry vaccine market is widely represented by domestically produced vaccines, including vaccines against the most common infectious diseases (Newcastle disease, Marek's disease, Gumboro disease, Infectious bronchitis of chickens, etc.). Since January 1, 2024, 4.3 billion doses of foreign-made vaccines against infectious avian diseases and 9.8 billion doses of domestically produced vaccines have been introduced into civilian circulation.”