Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture announced they are in favour of strengthening the control of production and the import of pesticides.
At a meeting yesterday the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture discussed the pesticide industry including measures to improve the regulatory framework for the import of pesticides.
The Minister pointed out that with the increasing amounts of pesticides imported into Russia, counterfeit products are becoming an issue.
He goes on to say the problem is not just poor quality products but that they can also be dangerous or harmful to land and agricultural production which is a fair point, I've unknowingly bought counterfeit shampoo in the past, nearly blinded me.
The response is to tighten control of the origin and quality of imported pesticides and to encourage domestic production of plant protection products.
Reduced imports and increased production is now fairly standard ministry rhetoric but I wouldn’t expect anything much to happen anytime soon.
While it is possible that we might see some tightening of import procedures there will likely be resistance from large and well-connected farm businesses should pesticide retail price increase significantly before any substitute domestic manufacturing capacity, which will take time and investment to build, comes online.
So Syngenta, BASF, Bayer and all the rest can breathe easy for now but you might want to consider looking at a business plan for building a factory in Russia inside the next five years.