Forecast scenario for the development of the meat market in Russia until 2020

E. N. Trifonova - Studies on Russian Economic Development

January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1, pp 104–107

The forecast scenario for the development of the domestic meat market until 2020, on the basis of the author’s approach to the analysis of markets of commodity substitutes, which is related to the study of the behavior of structural changes in the consumption of these commodities, is presented. Reasoned criticism of measures for supporting the Russian meat production complex, which are suggested by the Russian Meat Union, is conducted.

Meat is one of the staple and traditional foodstuffs in the Russian Federation. As a rule, the forecasting technique of its production is based on studies of trends or the evaluation of changes of the agricultural production potential. Below, I propose using a different approach, where the point of departure is the evaluation of consumer demand behavior according to price and income level, taking into account consumption patterns and food traditions, which exist in the relevant cultural environment. At the same time, a structural approach to studies of specific product consumption plays a key role in the forecasting of this behavior. In Russia, the behavior of meat consumption is ambiguous. Normal and even high meat consumption level was observed only in the soviet period. The transition to market relations was accompanied with negative changes in the Russian agricultural and food complex; it led to a slump in the consumption of meat and meat products. A slight increase in per capita consumption of meat was observed only from 2002. For an appreciable length of time, in the precrisis period, which preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union, the clear ‘leader’ in consumption was beef. However, the consumption pattern changed drastically by reason of the uneven intensive growth of prices of different meat types in Russia in the postSoviet period. The data of Table 1 shows that a growth in the price of all types of meat occurred from 2003 to 2006 (in particular, a large jump occurred in 2005) [1]. At the same time, during this period the most expensive meat product for customers was pork and the most accessible was poultry meat. Additional confirmation of the relative accessibility of beef is provided by the data that characterizes the purchasing power of per capita monetary income, which is calculated in kilograms per month. In particular, in 2007, this rate for beef was 92.8 kg, and for pork it was 87.8 kg.

As for per capita consumption, it also was expanding, but at a slow pace. This is due to the fact that during this length of time, the growth of population income and increase in purchasing power were insignificant. Accord ing to analysis of the pattern of consumption, a clear expansion in the consumption of all types of meat arose only at the end of the concerned period; at the same time, the consumption of beef and pork remained almost unchanged, but the consumption of poultry meat increased significantly. In other words, poultry replaced other types of meat; this is related to the relative accessibil ity of this commodity in comparison with other ones (the process of a decrease in cattle meat consumption at the cost of expansion in poultry meat consumption is observed all over the world).

See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S1075700710010119