ALEXANDER DERYUGIN: “NEXT YEAR IN AGRICULTURE WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THIS ONE”

“It is worth clearing up two points. First, in agriculture everything is done in advance, otherwise, lots of problems may arise. So, as regards this year, everything was bought last year, including seeds which are imported fr om abroad. It was done prior to the introduction of new restrictions, so everything goes smoothly.

The other point is that Russia has got a good harvest this year. As you know, in agriculture much depends on the weather which is beyond our control. This year, the weather conditions were favorable and we had a good harvest. So, one may get the impression that the situation in agriculture is more or less normal. But in reality, there is a delayed effect from sanctions and we shall see it next year. As regards some crops, we are heavily dependent on imported seeds. The option wh ere seeds for the next cycle are taken from plants grown this year, unfortunately, does not work at all. Numerous wide-spread crops are cultivated from hybrid seeds which cannot be produced this way. We need technologies and buy such seeds. They are more fertile, much more resistant to pests and so on. So, next year we shall not be able to receive seeds for the needed crops as we did before. We are going to face serious problems with such crops if we neither receive analogs of hybrid seeds, nor organize parallel imports.

Further, another problem consists in spare parts for the equipment. The equipment which was bought earlier cannot be repaired. This year we have had inventories of spare parts, but they are running out. Nobody has promised us a good harvest next year. Harvest can hardly be predicted. One may thing that everything is all right with agriculture and we do not need an additional package of support measures, but it is incorrect.

Next year is going to be difficult and the government is absolutely right to take preventive measures to support the farming sector because if it is not done now, they will have to do it next year when the situation gets much worse. So, we are getting prepared for the next year which is going to be absolutely different for us in agriculture, not like this one.”