President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I want to welcome you all once more to this agrarian forum devoted to one of the most topical aspects of food security.
I think your participation in the plenary sessions and in this discussion will help to develop cooperation in the grain sector. I hope the forum will also contribute to resolving the biggest problems humanity faces today, problems I spoke about just before at the plenary session. It will also make a contribution to very practical and utilitarian things such as cooperation between producers, because grain security, the grain forum, encompass very serious and complex social aspects while at the same time being a business, and thus require a particular approach. The voting that has taken place here clearly reveals these two different sides to the issue. Some of those taking part saw above all the humanitarian and social aspects of the grain supply issue, and this is fair enough, and others saw the pragmatic market aspects, the business aspects of this issue above all.
I just want to outline a few areas that could be the subject of discussion.
First is the spread of modern industrial technology in agricultural production. Our goal is to increase production and bring down costs in all areas, agricultural production costs in general, and grain production costs too. To achieve this we need to make use of the latest scientific advances, selection and genetic advances, new production technology and modern business models. Without this we will go nowhere. Of course, here in Russia we are implementing these models, taking into account our country’s widely varying weather and climate conditions.
The second point to discuss, I think, following on from the discussion at the plenary session, is the question of state support. This is one of those subjects always on the agenda, and here too we see diametrically opposed views. Some think that state support for agriculture is quite simply essential and that we will not manage without it. Others think that state support has quite the opposite effect and will only discourage the state from allowing normal business to develop in the agriculture sector, including in grain production and sales. Whatever the case, the current credit crunch leaves us no choice. We are obliged to make use of some kinds of state support. This is probably a temporary thing, but we have to use the money we put into the sector as best we can to protect our interests.
Finally, another issue I propose that all of you here today, Russian and foreign producers, discuss, is Russia’s place on the world grain market, because we work together on many projects in the area. We work together on producing and selling grain. Of course, Russia has a lot of interest in entering new markets, including in Southeast Asia, with a future view to developing an ‘eastern development corridor’. We are also interested in the CIS countries’ markets, some European markets, and African countries as potential buyers of our grain. In general, Russia sees diversification of its grain exports as a very important part of food security.
Our experts have forecast a harvest this year of 80 million-90 million tons of grain. I do not know how accurate these forecasts will prove, but these are the figures they give, and they analyse our export potential this year at around 20 million tons. But these are figures that do not take into consideration our internal problems, in particular problems with infrastructure and port capacity, which are another subject for discussion altogether.
I propose focusing the discussion on these main issues, but if you have proposals of your own to make, we can discuss other subjects too, of course.