Russian pork market in the first eight months of 2011

According to the Federal State Statistics Service by 1 August 2011 the number of pigs in all categories of farms in Russia totalled about 18.8 million heads, which is 0.8% higher than by 1 July this year and 0.1% more than in 1 August 2010.

During this year the number of pigs in households declined by 6.8% (470 thousand heads) to 6.4 million head, and the number of the industrial pig production (agricultural and peasant farms) has increased by nearly 4.0% (470 thousand heads) to 12.4 million heads.

Production
The volume of pork production in Russia in July 2011 was about 102.3 thousand tonnes in carcass weight (139.6 thousand tones in live weight, according to Rosstat). This is 1.9% less than in June of this year, but 7.9% more than in July 2010. In the period of January-July 2011 the volume of pork production in the agricultural organisations increased by 7.7% to 704.3 thousand tonnes in carcass weight compared with the same period of 2010.

Import
The total volume of imports of pork, bacon and offal in the first half of 2011 amounted to 554.8 thousand tonnes. Pork imports in the first half of 2011 grew by 5.9% compared with the same period in 2010, and versus the first half of 2009 it has increase by 20.6% to 323 thousand tonnes. Imports of pork offal in January-June 2011 amounted to slightly more than 88 tonnes. This is a 22.8% increase compared to the same period in 2010, but 0.7% less than the same period of 2009.

(Vladislav Vorotnikov)