Mikhail Shchetinin: “Import substitution is not an arrogant faith in success”

Mikhail Shchetinin: “Import substitution is not an arrogant faith in success”Interview by Vladimir Nesterov. Exclusively for Vestnik KavkazaWhen the EU and the US imposed sanctions on certain sectors of the Russian economy, Moscow launched countersanctions which banned imports of several groups of products from the US, Canada, Australia and the EU. Since that time, Russia has declared a policy of import substitution. According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the government will follow the course of import substitution in agriculture: “We will plant new gardens, we will develop greenhouse farms; we will deal with breeding.” Medvedev says that the growth of Russian supplies to trading networks positively influences prices.Interview by Vladimir Nesterov. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

When the EU and the US imposed sanctions on certain sectors of the Russian economy, Moscow launched countersanctions which banned imports of several groups of products from the US, Canada, Australia and the EU. Since that time, Russia has declared a policy of import substitution. According to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the government will follow the course of import substitution in agriculture: “We will plant new gardens, we will develop greenhouse farms; we will deal with breeding.” Medvedev says that the growth of Russian supplies to trading networks positively influences prices.

Senator from Altai Territory, a member of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, Michael Shchetinin told Vestnik Kavkaza about import substitution in Russia.

- The phrase ‘import substitution’ has recently become very fashionable. We meet it literally everywhere. What areas of industry, areas of development can you allocate to the Altai Territory on issues of import substitution?

- Import substitution is not an easy task. This process must be approached very seriously, carefully evaluating the resources at the disposal of our country, in one or another region of the country. And this approach in Altai Territory is very serious. Of course, the main specialty of the region is agriculture, the food processing industry. High quality and environmentally friendly Altai products are known far beyond Altai Territory, across the country. That is why, in pursuit of increasing production, we must not lose the most important thing – quality. But of course, production of certain products presupposes the existence of the required amount of raw materials. There is such a quantity of raw materials in Altai, though not in all sectors. Nevertheless, during the past year the cheesemakers of Altai Territory have produced more than 72,000 tons of cheese. This is a big figure. This is the best and biggest result in the country.  During the Soviet Union period, Altai was traditionally among the top three cheese producers in the country. And over the past five years it is an undisputed leader in the production of cheese, in terms of production volume and of course, in terms of the qualitative component.

All this is due to the quality of Altai's raw materials, with the milk produced in the region. The reallocation of raw dairy materials, production of some products, so to speak, dairy products for production of cheese helped to increase cheese production in Altai Territory. And according to this it is use of non-wasteful resource-saving technologies, including the use of recycled materials in the dairy industry.

I think the process is moving forward, but we still have much to do in this regard. First and foremost, of course, we need to increase the resource base. I do not speak about well-known Altai brands, such as different types of cereal, buckwheat is talked about and is produced in abundance in Altai Territory. I just want to say that about 80% of the volume of all the food products produced in Altai Territory is exported outside the region.

- It is not enough just to produce goods. Every market needs consumers. They say that there is a lot of cheese, but consumers do not get it. Does this issue still remain, or is the problem solved already?

- The problem of relations between producers and traders always exists. A manufacturer would like to sell products for higher prices to retail chains, and retail chains want to take these products cheaper and sell more expensive themselves. Redistribution of income is a serious problem which must be addressed at the federal, at the governmental level. Raw materials manufacturers should get a decent price for their products. Finished product manufacturers should also get good prices for their products. And, of course, the retailers selling these products should also earn something. Unfortunately, today the retailers are prevailing. A group of deputies of the State Duma and Federation Council members proposed an initiative to amend the basic trade law, which will allow the relationship between manufacturers and distributors of products to be regulated, I would say, slightly reducing the appetite of retail chains. This law is now under consideration. I think that, when it is  adopted, there will be a certain result on this issue.

- How ancient is the tradition of cheese-making in Altai Territory? After all, cheese which is produced here is already European brands. How did they appear in Altai Territory?

- In the Russian Empire, cheese was a delicious product. It was not available to the general public. Cheesemaking in Altai Territory began to develop before the revolution, after the start of the Stolypin reforms, when the German colonists came to Altai. Not only were they engaged in cheesemaking, there were also Russian businessmen. And in general, this issue began to be solved. Before the revolution, in Altai Territory there were more than 60 dairies. Unfortunately, after the October Revolution cheese production faded.

Cheesemaking received a second life in the early 1930s, when a famous scientist Dmitry Anatolyevich Granikov worked in Altai Territory. Especially for Altai milk he developed a special type of milk cheese, which is now widely known in the country, and abroad, too, “Soviet Cheese”. After this there was a development of Soviet cheesemaking. And the leadership of the Soviet Union was tasked with turning cheese from a delicacy product to a product of mass consumption. And that really happened. Today, probably, you can rarely find a Russian family in which cheese is not used in food. Miscellaneous types of cheese: soft, hard, semi-hard, brine, made from sheep, goat, cow's milk, but in one form or another cheese is used in food. By the way, cottage cheese is also a type of cheese.

- Speaking of the food policy of import substitution, how much is Altai Territory self-sufficient with its own food?

- We need about  20% of what the region produces for internal consumption. Everything else is  redistributed to neighboring regions, Moscow, St. Petersburg and so on.

Currently Altai Territory has the most modern grain processing. It produces high quality flour. This flour has high quality baking properties. This is due to the fact that it is made from durum wheat. You know that good and high quality pasta is made of this wheat and flour. Altai Territory supplies pasta even to Italy. A little bit, but still it is export. This is high quality, a quality which has been checked for years.

High-quality cereals are produced in Altai, which are also popular among the population. Today, a range of baby food is also produced and developed in Altai Territory. This is a very serious and very important sector for the Russian consumer. This baby food is dairy, and grain and vegetable.

- Altai Territory has a special spot among traditional tourism, or regularly visited places in Russia. Altai Territory does not have a sea, but there is something that attracts large numbers of tourists. What is it?

- I could argue about the sea, because Altai has Lake Bolshoye Yarovoye. The waters of the sea, the brine, and the mud of the lake, they are comparable with analogical products of the Dead Sea of Israel in terms of quality and even eclipse it in some aspects.

There are several other salty lakes. Tourists arrive every season, they come from our neighboring regions, they are the Tomsk, Omsk, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk Regions. Plates of cars from the central part of Russia flash ever more often. 

Altai is good in all hypostases. The foothills of the mountains are good, the steppe parts are good. Altai is an area of amazing beauty. If you visit Altai somewhere in late July and go to the steppe part, you will see enormous, endless wheat fields quivering in the wind, and it feels as though a sea runs somewhere over the horizon. 

You will see sunflower fields of amazing beauty, huge, golden sun cups which, if you walk out in the morning, start raising their heads gradually following the sun, turning, the process is repeated the other way around in the evening. It is a sight of amazing beauty. If you visit the roots of mountains, you can take velvet antler baths, you can visit highlands of amazing beauty, check mountain rivers. They are the Biya and the Katun that fuse into one of the world's largest rivers, the River Ob.

- Russia is a beautiful country, but the main problem for tourists is poor infrastructure. If you want to see beauties, you should be ready to stay in awful conditions…

- Today, the territory of Altai has 695 accommodation spots, including 44 sanatorium and resort complexes. About 70 children's recreation camps. The Territory managed to preserve all the children's recreational industry in the post-Soviet times. About 200 “green houses” today, in other words, visitors may have holidays at a tourism base, at a sanatorium, they may have holidays in rural areas, learning about rural lifestyles at rural farmsteads. 

Your British colleague shot a film about us. Imagine how excited he was when he milked a goat, when we taught him how to do this.

To be continued.