Potentially, the Russian Federation has every chance to increase the production and export of sugar. True, we are not talking about this season, but about a more distant prospect.
The driver for the development of production, as well as the export of sugar from Russia, can become a deficit that is created on the world market. Albina Koryagina, partner of the NEO Center consulting company, thinks so.
One of the recent trends is to increase the amount of energy produced from traditional foods. For example, vegetable oil, grains, sugar.
This trend is developing within the framework of the environmental agenda.
For Russian farmers, this is a good chance to make money, Koryagina believes. The country has all the necessary advantages: huge areas of cultivated land, as well as the availability of technology and production base.
True, there are problems.
For example, until now Russia is 95% dependent on the import of sugar beet seeds, from which all sugar is produced.
And something needs to be done about it as soon as possible, experts say. Moreover, the problem is not unsolvable.
Russia already has seeds that could become a quality replacement for foreign ones. But for the country to switch to them, it will be necessary to replicate such developments, and for this it is necessary to develop a network of seed farms.
This will help overcome similar difficulties with other cultures, sometimes the situation with them is a little better.
What are the prospects for this year?
According to the Institute of Agricultural Market Studies, last season sugar production in the country was at the level of about 5.9 million tons.
The result is not bad: 8% more than a year earlier.
In the current season, we can count on the production of about 6.3 million tons. At the same time, it cannot be said that this is a large amount: the fact is that Russians eat about 5.8-5.9 million tons of sugar a year, so there is not much left for export.
At the same time, in the 2019-2020 season, for example, Russia exported as much as 1.5 million tons of sugar, which is a record value.
In order to increase volumes, it will be necessary, among other things, to increase and modernize production capacities.
For example, the Russian Federation still exports low-tech products (beet pulp) more often than high-tech products (finished sugar).
The fact that domestic sugar prices in the Russian Federation are usually lower than world prices gives good prospects for development in this direction. But this year specifically, one can hardly count on exports of more than 300 000 tons.
