The Ministry of agriculture will develop measures to curb the sharp rise in milk prices

"One shouldn’t expect the decreasing of prices on the domestic dairy market at the end of 2016 and first quarter of 2017. However, the pace of price growth in January-February will fall, which will be due to the reduction in consumer demand", - stated in the message of Soyuzmoloko Union at the end of the meeting in the Ministry of agriculture.

This forecast is based on the fact that, according to experts, the prices for raw milk in the country will continue to be affected by the general economic situation and short-term factors operating on the dairy market. It is, in particular, about the decline in production of raw milk and reducing the number of cows. According to Rosstat, for the first 10 months of this year, milk production in the country decreased by 0.6% to 26.4 million tons, the number of cows decreased by 1.8%, to 8.3 million heads.

In addition, the price situation is influenced by a deficit of marketable milk and high demand from dairy enterprises. In this situation import hasn’t provided any support. "The rise in world prices for dairy products started in April-May and lasted in autumn, resulted in reducing the volume of imports of dairy products to Russia in the second half of 2016, - noted in the Union. - As a result commodity resources of the domestic market of dairy products continue to decline, the market shrinks, forming additional demand for domestic raw materials".

At the same time, experts note that the pace of price growth will be constrained by the limited solvent demand. The Ministry of agriculture estimates the shortage of milk on the market as 7 million tons.

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