Russia reducing dependence on soybean meal imports

KYIV, Ukraine - June 15, 2017 - PRLog -- Growers in the Black Sea countries have been increasingly interested in soybean cultivation over the recent decade. Russia's agriculture follows the same trend. So, the soybean crop has more than quadrupled in this period, reaching a record 3.1 MMT in MY 2016/17.

Apart from an expansion of planted acreage, greater stability is seen in soybean yields, which neared a record 1.44 MT/ha in 2016/17 season with a peak value of 1.48 MT/ha.

Soybeans continue to be an important source of food and feed protein around the world. The interest of key international growers in this oilseed's cultivation is kept up by rising consumption both of soybeans themselves (+26.1% over the last five years) and soybean products, in particular meal (+25.7%). The USDA forecasts these figures to gain 4% and 4.7%, respectively, in 2017/18 season.

Global consumption of soybeans and soybean meal, MMT

   2012/2013  2013/2014  2014/2015  2015/2016  2016/2017  2017/2018

(forecast)
Soybeans  262.7  276.5  302.1  314.5  331.3  344.2 (+4%)
Soybean meal  177.8  186.7  201.7  214.0  223.5  233.9 (+4.7%)

The need for protein feed components grows in Russia as the livestock and poultry sectors develop and productivity of farm animals rise. So, over the last five years, poultry and hog inventories have increased 17% and 32%, respectively.

Soybean meal/cake remains the most effective component for meeting Russia's expanding need for high-protein feeds. At the same time, this market segment faces the task of reducing dependence on imports. Sufficient crushing capacities and this season's bumper soybean crop allows to reduce dependence on exporters, if not to entirely solve this problem.

So, the current 2016/17 season (September-April) witnesses a 25% drop in soybean exports in favor of domestic processing. In addition, soybean and soybean cake imports are down 1% and 89%, respectively. At the same time, while the soybean market has been featuring this trend since three years ago and the decrease is quite smooth, soybean meal imports are uneven and the past seven months of MY 2016/17 saw a slump in this product's purchases from foreign sellers (33 KMT against 291 KMT).

Assessing the current situation, UkrAgroConsult expects the soybean and soybean meal market to follow the current trend till the end of MY 2016/17. Also, in view of a 3.6% expansion of soya plantings for the 2017 harvest, it will continue into the next 2017/18 season.

Russia: Soya planted area, Th ha (Russian Ag Ministry's forecast)

2017  2016  +/- (%)  +/- (Thha)
2264  2185  103.6  79.0

Further prospects of the Black Sea oilseeds/vegoils market will be discussed at the V International Conference "Black Sea Oil Trade", which will take place on September 19, 2017 in Hilton hotel, Kiev, Ukraine.

Annual International Conference "Black Sea Oil Trade" – is an effective platform, providing oilseed industry operators with vast networking opportunities, exclusive analytics of Ukrainian and Black Sea agri market, insights for development of the long term business strategies.

Conference participants are represented by producers and crushers of oilseeds, traders, enterprises for deep processing of vegetable oils, agriholdings, investment companies, banks, legal, shipping, brokerage, insurance, surveyor companies etc.

Early Bird registration rate is available! Market operators from 10 countries have already registered to take part.

Follow the updates, Agenda and Speakers at the conference website (http://www.ukragroconsult.com/bso/2017/en/conference).

UkrAgroConsult