As noted by Valentina Matviyenko, Chairperson of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, the senators plan to control prices for fuels and lubricants for farmers during the sowing season.
According to her, each senator should monitor how the sowing campaign is going in different regions, as well as report in a timely manner if any problems arise.
For each of them, a decision will be promptly made in the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian Policy, and the Ministry of Agriculture will also be involved.
As for fuel and lubricants, they are extremely important for the sowing campaign to be completed successfully. And here there are 2 problems:
— Too high prices for fuels and lubricants, which can make it difficult for farmers to buy them in the required volume.
That is why it is so important to watch to prevent unreasonable growth, and in previous years this often happened.
— There is a shortage in the fuel and lubricants market, which will not allow to physically obtain the necessary materials at the right time.
It is assumed that not only the Federation Council, but also the FAS will monitor the prevention of unreasonable price hikes.
How serious is the problem?
As Vice-President of the Russian Grain Union Alexander Korbut noted, at the moment there are no signals from farmers that could indicate that there may be problems with fuels and lubricants.
In addition, he noted that this is far from the main item of expenditure for agricultural producers, since it is no more than 5-7% of their total volume.
One of the issues on this topic, which has been under consideration for almost 20 years, is the abolition of the excise tax on diesel fuel for farmers.
In principle, this makes sense, because the essence of the excise tax is largely to collect money from heavy equipment that will be used to restore roads destroyed by this equipment.
However, tractors and combine harvesters do not drive on federal highways, Vladimir Plotnikov, president of the Association of Peasant (Farmer) Households and Agricultural Cooperatives (AKKOR), noted.
Therefore, this excise tax does not make much sense for them, and it needs to be abolished, farmers intend to make efforts in this direction.
On this issue, Alexander Korbut again stated that the role of fuels and lubricants for farmers is exaggerated, as well as the significance of this excise tax.
Much more important for farmers is the ability to freely generate income, he stressed. That is why the main thing that should be done by the authorities is to abolish export duties.
In this case, the farmers would finally have money, and the presence or absence of some kind of excise tax on fuel and lubricants would no longer bother them much.
