This is nonsense: you can’t screech about how Russian agricultural producers will benefit while also staging a stupid show of “fighting inflated prices”:
Sorry, but you can’t buy those separately. Russian agricultural producers want the same thing everyone else does: to earn more for their hard work. If their business becomes more profitable and stable, then it will start to expand.
Let’s assume—even though it’s complete nonsense—that we really are treating sanctions as a way to help domestic agricultural producers. How exactly can they turn that help into actual benefit for themselves? To assume they can just pull 100 cows out of their pocket right here and now and send them straight to supermarket shelves is, at the very least, naive. They need to earn more now in order to start breeding more cattle. Which means they will raise prices. That is the only real option available to them.
See for yourself: suppose you run an agricultural business. You produce milk and dairy products. You survive however you can, work like hell, and struggle to compete with Belarusian producers and Europe. Every second, you’re losing your mind—there’s no better phrase for it—over the prices of gas, feed, and electricity. You’re terrified of livestock epidemics, Roskomnadzor (Russia’s state media and communications regulator), and of idiot employees starting to film themselves bathing in milk. In other words, yours is a hard life in a hard business.
And then you’re told: there will be 20% less dairy in the country, and Europe is leaving the market.
What do you do? Well, obviously, you raise prices. If you can, by 20%; if not, by as much as you can manage.
And how could you not raise them? This is your once-in-a-generation chance to make money.
And even when they “call you in” and say, “Why did you raise the price?”, you’ll give the perfectly logical answer: How exactly do you guys expect me to increase production by 20% next year? Take out a loan? Well, that has to be paid back—and before you even get it, you have to kick back 30%. Here, the money is practically falling into my hands. Timchenko and Vorobyov are raising prices? Then I will too.
And don’t forget that domestic producers do not exist in a vacuum. They still have to compete with Belarus, Latin America, and so on. Refusing the chance to profit from higher prices would simply mean handing that money over to Belarusian producers.
So, to those who think sanctions are a blessing for our farmers, be honest: we are ready for beef to become 10% more expensive starting in mid-September, because that 10% will go toward improving the profitability of domestic agricultural businesses.
P.S. By the way, I highly recommend reading a post where questions are answered by a guy who moved to Pskov Region to raise rabbits. It’s very effective at curing people of their illusions: