The volume of soybean meal production in Russia during recent years substantially grew, declared Maria Domoroschenkova, Head of Department of production of food vegetable proteins and biotechnologies of the State Scientific Institution the All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Fats of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, at the conference "Ukrainian soybean market - 2012" on May 17.
According to her, in 2011 oil-extraction plants of Russia processed over 1.3 mln tonnes of soybeans only, and in general - over 1.65 mln tonnes of the oilseed, according to the state statistics data.
The expert noted that the production of soybeans in Russia is limited due to many climatic and geographical factors, which puts the livestock industry in dependence on imports of soybeans and soybean meal.
In the terms of the growth of capacities of the Russian companies during recent years, there is the tendency of the growth of imports of soybeans with the similar decrease of soybean meal imports. In 2010-2011, Argentina, the EU, Brazil and the United States supplied the major volumes of soybean meal, marked M.Domoroschenkova.
According to her, despite the increase of the domestic production of soybean meal, it does not satisfy the growing needs of agriculture. In accordance with the program "Development of mixed feed production in the Russian Federation for 2010-2012" in 2011 the domestic need for soybean meal was estimated at the level of 3.5 mln tonnes, while the index was satisfied in 41.5% only, taking into account import supplies of soybean meal.
