Last week, European leaders sat down in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to negotiate a critical peace deal over Ukraine. At exactly the same hour, a few miles away across the city, another less visible, but equally critical event, was under way.

Here, Russian, European and American farming folk were engaged in more mundane, but less fraught and the most friendly of negotiations. Specifically, all the major European and American agri industry companies were in Moscow to sell their agricultural and food production technologies to Russian farmers.

The timing, the contexts, and the juxtapositions of both events could not be stranger and more relevant.

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Russia’s top priority

That said, Russia’s top priority of creating its own indigenous dairy industry dominated AgroFarm Russia 2015. None of the international manufacturers of milking parlours and equipment were about to miss out on this massive business opportunity.

International groups like De Laval, Boumatic, GEA/Westfalia spared nothing to demonstrate their milking technology systems. Specifically, they demonstrated all their latest models in robotic and rotary milking parlours.

Compared to other EU Countries, the Irish presence at AgroFarm Russia 2015 was minimal. However, the few who did turn up performed well.

McHale, EasyFix Slat Mats and Hermitage Pedigree Pigs attracted high interest. Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland executives were also very active.

Kilkenny-based Hermitage Pedigree Pigs is an excellent case study in what many other Irish agri-business companies can achieve in Russia, and in a very short time. Hermitage is one of the most successful and prominent pig-breeding companies in Russia today.

There is serious and unrelenting competition in the Russian pig-breeding market. All the leading international pedigree pig-breeding companies from Holland, Denmark, the UK, Canada and USA were very active last week in Moscow.

Despite all this, the well-designed Hermitage stand appeared to be attracting most of Russia’s extremely large and most discerning pig farming companies. Miratorg is one of Hermitage’s main customers: This Russian agri company has 120,000 sows.

Growth

Hermitage’s representatives at AgroFarm Russia 2015 were quietly confident of continued growth in the sector. Gerry Douglas and Ilya Korolev from Hermitage reported “exceptionally strong demand for Hermitage pedigree gilts, boars, and boar semen this year”.

This is not surprising, because Russian retail pork prices are up by at least 20% to 30% in the last few months. Currently, they stand at an all-time high of €4/kg. But Russian salaries are only a small fraction of Irish levels, and are falling rapidly.

Therefore, this inflated pork price is totally unsustainable in Russia today. So it is only a matter of time before pork supply meets demand in Russia.

Technology

This new demand for all livestock breeding systems and modern agricultural technologies is now at fever-pitch throughout Russia. It has been increasing rapidly since the imposition of the Russian food import sanctions last August.

If and when a settlement is reached over Ukraine, Russia’s requirements for new agricultural technologies and livestock breeding systems will become almost insatiable.

Brendan Dunleavy has over 20 years’ agricultural project management experience in Russia and Ukraine.