Russian meat: a global leader of sorts

Overview

Russia is now the world’s single largest meat importer by volume. This makes the meat sector an exception to the typical picture in today’s Russian economy of rapidly growing import substitution in the face of booming domestic demand. There is nothing unusual on the demand side. Per capita meat consumption growing at 10 per cent a year is set to overtake the late-Soviet peak.

The anomaly comes in the sluggishness of domestic production. So devastating was the collapse of livestock...