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Published: March 2nd, 2016

Within the framework of the Moscow Economic Forum (MEF), which will be held from 23 to 24 March in the capital, scientific and practical conference "Agribusiness in Russia: state and development trends" will be held. Pavel Grudinin the expert of MEF, Director of CJSC "State farm named after Lenin" will take part in the discussion. On the eve of the conference he told about the situation is developing in agriculture now.

– How do you assess the current state of the agrobusiness? How the devaluation of the ruble influenced industry?

– The industry has almost nothing to do with the devaluation of the ruble, except for one point: many components of our products have risen in price in half, so its cost increased. In this case the selling price, unfortunately, did not rise, because the devaluation of the ruble and the overall economic downturn led to the fact that the purchasing power has decreased. In connection with this production has become less in demand. People have started to save on food. This became quite an interesting situation: the prime cost is greatly increasing, but sales price either remain at the same level, or falls. A striking example - the potato. All this may lead to the fact that we'llstart to plant less vegetables.

– Why is the efficiency of import substitution in Russia still can not talk about creation and development of their production?

– And who said that we have an effective import substitution? For some reason, it is customary to speak . But I want to give you an example. We had an imported from Holland cheese. We decided to replace it with our own. But Russia does not have as much milk as needed to make cheese in the required quantities. At the same time, as I said, the purchasing power of the population fell. As a result, we have replaced the cheese with so-called cheese product made with the use of palm oil. We made import substitution, but who is happy? We can not replace bananas, kiwis, peaches and apricots. In order to replace the potatoes, apples, pears, tomatoes, cucumbers, dairy products Russia needs to increase production, which is now, in contrast, is reduced. To squeeze out the country's importers, we need to start to produce competitive products. It should be of quality and affordable. There are different methods, but today the state does nothing to ensure the competitiveness of agriculture.

– How do you assess the results of the work of program №1432 - giving 15% discount on domestic agricultural machinery? Do you take advantage of this program as the head of an agricultural enterprise?

No, I will not use this program. Russian equipment is uncompetitive in my field. I have a foreign tractors, foreign combines and foreign agricultural machinery. Unfortunately, the Russian engineering industry does not produce what the customer needs. I think about the comfort of their workers. If I have been showed domestic appliances, comparable to the foreign, then maybe I would have taken advantage of this program.

Source: PR department of MEF