Crimea facing a shortage on raw material for feed

Soybean and corn export

Previously, Crimea has been producing soybean and corn and exports these types of production to the mainland Ukraine. “However, production of protein crops at the peninsula has dramatically decreased after the overlap of the North-Crimean irrigation canal by Ukraine authorities”, said Vitaly Polishchuk at an enlarged meeting of the Committee of the Federation Council for Agricultural and Food Policy and Environmental Management.

Drop in soybean production

“In particular, the production of soybeans dropped drastically in 2014, which almost left the peninsula without this crop” he stated. At the same time, Crimea continues to suffer a shortage of water so the situation is not likely to improve this year.

At the same time, according to Vitaly Polishchuk there is a problem with the lack of a bridge across the Kerch crossing, which increases the cost of components for compound feed production supplied to the peninsula from mainland Russia.

“The cost of delivery of products, raw materials and components increases from 30% to 40%, which ultimately includes in the cost of production of compound feed, and than goes to the cost of livestock production at the market,” he added.

According to him, the only one option is to import soybean and other raw materials for compound feed from the Ukraine, but there are still a lot of obstacles to overcome.