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The sharp rise in the price of butter was caused by a problem that MOYO! wrote about.
Oil prices are unlikely to get cheaper
Vegetarians are probably the only ones who haven't noticed how much butter has become more expensive these days. So, let's start with the numbers. According to Voronezhstat monitoring, the cost of 1 kg of butter in our region in August 2023 averaged 763 rubles (in August 2024 - 906 rubles). Then the price of oil began to rise even faster, and by October 14 of this year it already cost 1027 rubles. As a result, in a year and two months, the price of butter has increased by 34.6%.
Perhaps someone will argue with these figures and say that oil prices have grown much more noticeably. But Voronezhstat deserves gratitude in any case. In most regions of Russia, territorial bodies of Rosstat do not publish the results of monitoring food prices without explanation.
But under no circumstances should you hide your sewing in your bag. We hear news from all over our country that butter prices have skyrocketed. The price increase has hit the wallets of pensioners and low-income people especially hard.
Izvestia asked the Russian Ministry of Agriculture what was happening with oil prices. And not long ago we received a brief answer. The price increase was due to "a significant increase in the consumption of dairy products in the country due to an increase in the population's income, the production of products using butter and demand from companies and specific enterprises in the hotel and restaurant sector."
This version was partially confirmed by the director of the Union of Dairy Industry Enterprises of Russia, Lyudmila Manitskaya. According to her, Russia is seeing an unprecedented increase in dairy consumption: from 167 kg per person per year in 2020 to 270 kg this year.
However, the chairman of the dairy federation decided that it was necessary to understand that the problem was not in the increase in demand itself. The problem was that, simultaneously with the growth of demand, supply was not only stagnating, but also significantly decreasing.
"We don't have enough milk," says Lyudmila Manitskaya. "That means we don't have enough cows." The number of cows is decreasing every year. Last year, the number of dairy cows decreased by 300,000 cows. The herd simply decreased by 500,000. "It's like that every year, every year."
Let me remind you: "This is mine!" At one time, she was the first to draw attention to the reduction in the number of cattle in the Voronezh region. And, unfortunately, our forecasts about the growth of prices for cattle came true.
Here are the latest figures: As of August 2024, there were 156.6 thousand heads of cattle in agricultural organizations of the Voronezh Region. Compared to last year, it has decreased by 5.4%. The farm contained 17.5 thousand heads of cattle. And this is immediately a quarter less than a year ago.
Why is the population shrinking? Rising costs make it increasingly unprofitable to maintain the same herd. In this situation, according to the laws of the market, milk producers can make more profit by sharply increasing milk prices, even if they reduce production. Unfortunately, these are all signs of an unhealthy economic situation.
The Russian Ministry of Agriculture stated that “measures are being taken to increase imports of butter from friendly countries” due to the increased demand for butter and rising prices. The main foreign supplier of dairy products to Russia is, of course, Belarus. Butter production there is large. For comparison, Russia as a whole produced about 253 thousand tons of oil in 2023, and tiny Belarus - 107 thousand tons.
But the problem is that most of this oil has long been produced "for Russia". That is, taking into account exports from Belarus, there is already a shortage of butter on the Russian market. Of course, our partners cannot suddenly increase production more than Russia itself can do. So, unfortunately, there are no prerequisites for lowering oil prices.