Russia has had bad publicity, but the facts are -from a net importer 20 years ago, it is now the first or second largest wheat exporter in the world, still with huge underutilised areas, and improving infrastructure to get products to ports. Pork and chicken production have achieved self-sufficiency, and we continue to see impressive growth in the Beef and Dairy sectors, but still with expansion required to meet existing and growing domestic demand. Potatoes and vegetables have grown, but need much higher quality to meet the higher standards gradually expected in the domestic and processing market. Existing businesses who have been unable to meet higher standards will fail, offering investment possibilities to buy well equipped farms with irrigated quality soils and storage. They need only working capital and operational support. Also true for the pork industry.
Russia offers large agricultural subsidies, 100’s of thousands of hectares have been bought back in to production, and millions more are available with Federal and Regional support. The much-publicised sanctions have been a huge benefit for Russian agriculture, which is expanding, ironically using mostly Western technology and global Finance.
Local and regional authorities can be very bureaucratic, and some corruption exists – as it does in Bulgaria, Romania, Africa, South America, etc….. these are just issues that need to be managed, as we do with soil type, precipitation and commodity prices. Lakvades OU has been working in Russia and the CIS for 15 years, we know people and have learnt from other people’s mistakes – so you don’t need to.
We have arable units producing 50% ROI, and we have seen some that were disastrous because they were arrogant and ignored the local environment and culture. We have experience in livestock and crop production. We can advise you where to go, what to do, and how to do it but most of all we will stay, and do it. michael@lakvades.com +7915 160 0098
