Rossiskaya Gazeta - Food for billions
Russia and Kazakhstan stake on food.
President Vladimir Putin said at the Forum for Inter-regional Cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in Sochi that Russia was ready to fulfil an import substation programme in agriculture with the Eurasian Economic Union countries.
The day before in Dushanbe the leaders discussed security in the region and in the world at the summit of the CSTO countries and now two presidents - Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev - focused on the issues of food security.
"Russia pays paramount attention to import substitution in agriculture. We have devised a list of import projects aimed at expanding the internal manufacture of this group of commodities," the Russian president said. This year the production of dairy, meat and fish products increased significantly - by 26%, 5% and 6%, respectively. "In its import substitution efforts the Russian side is ready for close cooperation with partners from Kazakhstan and the entire European Union," he emphasised.
Russia is interested in building production and technological chains in agriculture, the food sector and other industries.
This cooperation will benefit everyone, improve competitiveness in global markets and alleviate dependence on Western supplies. "This will guarantee the economic and food security of our countries," Vladimir Putin explained.
The Russian president sees significant opportunities in the expansion of mutual supplies. Agricultural produce accounts for less than 9% of overall trade. "The prospects in this area are obviously significant," he said. "We can and should change this situation [...] We'll be waiting for specific proposals from respective authorities and heads of regions."
The Russian leader reasonably stated that, "It should be understood that there is no need to import vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat from foreign countries and to make orders to foreign suppliers when our own producers are ready and want to work and to approach the common Eurasian market with their products, which are not inferior and sometimes are better in terms of quality."
"The fall of raw material prices and the devaluation of currencies in certain countries provide us with the opportunity to reveal internal growth reserves," Nursultan Nazarbayev said. The EEU's trade turnover has shrunk but this is not critical: economies begin to grow after crises. "Using this moment we can now begin to prepare to a new breakthrough after this crisis," he stated.
"Food is one of the most stable currencies today when oil prices have fallen. And we always have food. Both our countries are agrarian and industrial and we have significant opportunities. The real value of the present and the future is the agrarian sector," Nazarbayev is convinced. "Kazakhstan and Russia's wealth in this sense is priceless." The countries' farmlands total 435 million hectares and make up more than 10% of the world's resources. According to the UN, by 2050 global population will exceed 9 billion people. "And one of the issues on the global development agenda will be how to feed these billions of people," Nazarbayev emphasised. "Our countries have potential to become leading players in the global food market. It is already happening - Russia already ranks third in the world in terms of grain exports," the Kazakh leader explained.
Nazarbayev believes that the ministries of agriculture should work on the establishment of joint agrarian innovation centres, which would commercialise and introduce new technological solutions on an industrial scale. He proposed that such centres be established along the Western Europe - Western China corridor with the use of Eurasian Development Bank's resources.
The Kazakh president also proposed to devise joint quality standards for food products, including milk. "There is no strict division between natural whole milk and reconstituted milk," he said. "I argue with my friend Alexander Lukashenko. He supplies powder here, powder is watered down and sold as milk, but this is not milk at all," the president of Kazakhstan believes. The country is also ready to increase beef exports to Russia and supply more than 3,000 tonnes of meat a year, of quality which is not inferior to supplies from Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.
Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachyov reported that last year the growth in agriculture was over 4%. In recent years, agricultural exports increased by 15% and reached almost US $20 billion. Tkachyov proposed that the ministries' authority to destroy sanctioned or falsified products should be extended, "so that we could also destroy sanctioned or poor quality products within the country, as we do this on the borders."
The presidents had a separate meeting before the forum. In particular, Nazarbayev invited Putin to pay an official visit to Kazakhstan in October before or after the CIS summit.