Reducing duties on chicken imports from Brazil is a last resort

After a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture of RUSSIA with representatives of the National Union of Poultry Breeders on Tuesday, March 2, Ilya Bereznyuk, managing partner of the consulting agency Agro and Food Communications, commented on one of the possible measures to stabilize prices in the domestic market, namely, reducing the duty on the import of poultry from Brazil. Writes about this magazine "Agribusiness" with reference to RIA Novosti.

According to Bereznyuk, such a move will help temporarily reduce prices, although given the depreciation of the ruble and the high cost of poultry in Brazil, additional supplies will not be significant. In addition, in the long term, lower duties on imports of Brazilian poultry products will result in negative consequences for the domestic market, he said.

The speaker noted that an increase in the share of Brazilian poultry MEAT would change the competitive environment not in favor of domestic market players. They will have less incentive to new investments, which will sooner or later lead to a reduction in production.

Ilya Bereznyuk considers the state support measures that were discussed at the meeting to be effective, that is, in the short term they will help reduce the cost and prices of broiler eggs and meat. At the same time, one should not forget that exchange rates affect the cost, the expert reminded: the prices for feed and hatching eggs depend on the euro.

Now Brazil is the main supplier of poultry meat to Russia. According to the Federal Customs Service, in January-September 2020, the volume of imports of poultry products from this country amounted to 57.161 thousand tons (71.7%). The second place was taken by Belarus with a share of 40% (26.42 thousand tons), the third - by the Netherlands with a share of 20.2% (13.249 thousand tons), the fourth - by the Czech Republic with a share of 7.3% (4.784 thousand tons).