Yuri Kovalev: This year, the pig industry will not show a significant increase in production for the first time in 15 years

Director General of the National Union of Pig Breeders Yuri Kovalev spoke about the dynamics of production and the impact of the epizootic situation on the industry, and also announced a forecast for 2022 and 2023. As part of his speech at the Agrotrends Russia conference , organized by Agrotrend.ru, the expert said that in September, Rosstat recorded a 0.1% decrease in pork production, and the industry has not seen such a fall for the past 15 years.

At the beginning of his speech, Yuri Kovalev referred to the data voiced during the speech of Sergei Lisovsky, including in terms of transferring manure to the category of hazardous waste.

“Just talking about our industry. One of our best enterprises - it belongs to the middle, but it is a very large player in the Stavropol Territory - received a lawsuit for 7.5 billion rubles for allegedly mishandling manure, with an annual revenue of 5.5 billion. Extrapolating this to the entire industry, this fact can have serious consequences. The issue is currently under the jurisdiction of the courts, and we are all watching it closely,” the speaker emphasized.

For the pig industry, the main challenge is the risk of oversaturation of the domestic market due to huge investments and an increase in production, which is expected in the next 4 years, continued Yuri Kovalev.

According to the data voiced by the expert, in 2021 there was an increase in pork production by 5% - this is the result of what was built in 2018-2019 and fed in 2020. But subsequently, production dropped sharply, by the same 5% as a result of the current epizootic situation:

“About a million pigs we had to destroy. For comparison: over the past 10 years, about 2 million have been destroyed. This is a matter of food and national security.

Rosstat stated -0.1% of pork production for 9 months of 2021, such a decrease was noted for the first time in 15 years, Yuri Kovalev said. Nevertheless, if we look at further dynamics, then if in September the CFD recorded -12%, then in October the dynamics was positive and amounted to +4%.

In parallel with these fluctuations, there is a massive drop in wholesale prices, Yuri Kovalev stressed.

- If back in September we discussed prices of 140-145 rubles per kg of live pigs, then recently the figure 95 has been heard more and more often at a cost of 100. Now we need to think about how to raise prices.

The year turned out to be very difficult, summed up the general director of the National Union of Pig Breeders, but the restoration of production began. This year, Yuri Kovalev emphasized, for the first time in the last 15 years, the industry will not show a significant increase in production, but in 2022-2023 (taking into account the ASF factor), we can talk about a growth forecast of + 7-8%, while the pessimistic forecast is + 5% , optimistic — +10%.

“In 2022, the risk of overproduction remains, but this means that the parameters of competitiveness will come to the fore,” summed up the director general of the National Union of Pig Breeders.