The Financial Times has covered the agricultural boom in Russia

Russia is experiencing an agricultural boom, proving that the market has a lot of hidden opportunities for investors, writes the Financial Times.
After the West imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014, and it responded with countermeasures, many business representatives in Russia understood this as an opportunity for the development of local companies and the prospect for import substitution, recalls the author of the article, Neil Buckley.

Some Western analysts and investors did not believe that anything of this would become real. However such optimism was justified, at least in the field of agriculture, the article says.

Last year, Russia became the world's largest exporter of grain crops. Total production volume, according to the FT, reached a record 119 million tons, 34 million of which was the cost of exported products.

Russian companies have made progress in other areas of agriculture as well: domestic production of pork and chicken has eliminated the need for import. Moreover, Russia became a leading supplier of sugar beet, and greenhouse vegetable production increased by 30% last year compared to 2015. The publication notes that agricultural products became the second main export item in Russia after oil and gas.

Russia is also actively using the benefits of its geographical position - in particular, the fertile lands in central and southern regions of the country are located quite close to the Black Sea export terminals. Through these hubs, Russian wheat goes to such large importers as Turkey and Egypt.

The agricultural sector is likely to develop further as profit growth allows farmers to invest in technologies and purchase more fertilizers to improve the situation in less developed areas of the agro-industrial complex.

For example, on the border with China, Russia has all kinds of opportunities to grow soybeans. Although, it may take years to develop this direction. “But even without this circumstance, the Russian agricultural boom shows that, despite sanctions and problems with East-West relations, there is a lot of opportunities in the market,” Buckley concludes.

Source: ria.ru