991032 Russia Reluctant to Take U.S. Meat AidOctober 16, 1999Moscow - Russia is reluctant to accept meat in an aid package requested from the United States, but would prefer to take feed grain and so boost its domestic meat industry, a deputy prime minister said. “We are going to take only products of which we face an evident deficit. So we would like to get feed grain on a donation basis, in order not to import meat but to produce it here,” Vladimir Shcherbak said. Shcherbak, who has overall responsibility for the farming sector, was talking to journalists on the fringes of a Russian food trade fair. Because of a large expected grain deficit this year, Russia has already asked the United States for several million tonnes of food aid, and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman has said negotiations could include adding meat to the package. Shcherbak said Russia faced a grain deficit of 15 to 16 million tonnes in the coming year. “Our requirements will be around 74 million tonnes of grain if we do not reduce, but actually increase, the volume of livestock production,” he said. “So we will need around 15 to 16 million tonnes, but this will include our traditional purchases from Kazakhstan, from where we normally import 2.5 million tonnes. This year we will import more or less that amount.” Agriculture Minister Aleksei Gordeyev, also present at the trade fair, said Russia expects to harvest 58 million tonnes of grain, of which around 56 million had been collected. Shcherbak said Russia would import some grain from Ukraine to be used in border regions this year, and would export some volumes to Georgia and Armenia. Russia would also import grain for Far Eastern regions as it did not make economic sence to transport grain from European Russia to the Far East.
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