How many pregnant sows can you load on to a jumbo jet? And for its next flight, how many in-calf dairy cows can you carry on the same plane?

These are questions that Michael O’Leary has probably never thought about. But in Russia, things are different.

At a remote airfield outside of Moscow, a large plane lands carrying very precious and unusual cargo. This was an extraordinary top secret mission.

The next flight of the same plane could be carrying 150 in-calf Holstein heifers

So secretive in fact, that all cameras and smartphones were banned from around the plane. Indeed, all the passengers on board would be unusual for most airports.

But for Russia, it is now becoming normal.

On this occasion, 600 pregnant sows get the VIP treatment as they arrived travelling first class from Edmonton, central Canada.

The next flight of the same plane could be carrying 150 in-calf Holstein heifers.

Back at the airfield outside Moscow, the pregnant sows are carefully escorted down the ramp and led into centrally heated, air conditioned and insulated lorries

These come from as far away as Saskatchewan, Wisconsin and Brisbane.

Their passports, boarding passes, health status, and even their breeding and production potential have all been cleared well in advance, over 15 000 miles away.

Back at the airfield outside Moscow, the pregnant sows are carefully escorted down the ramp and led into centrally heated, air conditioned and insulated lorries.

Call them pig limos. Their ultimate destination is one of the biggest pig farms in the world.

These are right up there with the best five-star Irish piggeries in design, environment, health, and comfort standards. But because of climate extremes of the Arctic Russian winter and the heatwaves of the summer, modern Russian piggeries must have an extra star. This confers on modern Russian piggeries the status of six-Star Russian pig hotels.

Unprecedented

After generations of decline and neglect by governments, Russian farmers are now on the up again. Specifically, Russian pig, poultry, and dairy farmers are now expanding their enterprises at enormous and unprecedented rates.

So fast and so vast are they growing that they can’t generate enough breeding stock at a quick enough pace

Even by the most expansionary American, European, Brazilian and New Zealand standards, Russian farmers are now growing the fastest. So fast and so vast are they growing that they can’t generate enough breeding stock at a quick enough pace from within their own herds to keep up with this expansion.

Moscow Kremlin at night at Victory Day (9 May).

So Russian farmers are now turning to Canadian, American, European, Australian, and even Irish dairy and pig farmers, for greatly increased numbers of prime breeding stock.

This expansion is a major threat to Irish dairy and pig farmers.

Specifically, Russia could take every four-legged bovine and porcine female in the whole of Europe, and still be short for the next 10 years.

Revolution

There is nothing particularly new in this trend. Russia has been importing prime breeding livestock and agricultural seeds for years.

This was because Trofim Lysenko, the Russian state livestock breeding specialist, denied the principles of modern livestock breeding genetics for decades.

What is different about the new era of breeding livestock imports is the speed and the scale of it

Lysenko’s legacy took a long time to run out. As late as 30 years ago, Lysenko’s “Theory of The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics” was An Article of Faith on Russian State Farms.

In summary, this meant that when a pig farmer cut the tails of baby piglets, in due course, these would produce their own baby piglets without tails.

This fitted perfectly with the prevailing Stalinist dogma and it would even be very handy for pig farmers, if it worked. But fortunately, it didn’t.

What is different about the new era of breeding livestock imports is the speed and the scale of it. The urgency of Russia’s current agricultural revolution is truly phenomenal.

Vulnerable

Indeed, Russian farmers are now growing so quickly, that they could outclass every farmer in Europe within the next five years.

The ambitions of Irish dairy and pig farmers to continue to grow may have to be put on-hold for a long time to come.

This is because all Irish dairy and pig farmers are now particularly at risk and vulnerable to the scale of development currently going on throughout Russia.