The protein system
Russia had 117.8 grams of protein per person a day in its food supply in 2023. Animal foods supplied 70.3 grams and plants 47.5.[1, 2, 5] Pork and poultry made up 86.9 per cent of meat output in 2025. Russia produced more pork than it ate, but less chicken and beef.[4]
Fish is a second source of protein. The catch was 4.7 million tonnes in 2025, more than 2 million tonnes of it pollock, and fish farms produced 390,000 tonnes.[11] Wheat is the main surplus. USDA puts production at 90.3 million tonnes in 2025/26, against 41.2 million used at home, with 48 million exported.[3, 13]
Russia still imports more food than it exports. In 2025 food exports fell 4.1 per cent to US$40.9 billion, while imports rose 15 per cent to US$43.4 billion. Fruit and vegetables, tropical goods and processed foods make up the gap.[8]
Durable domestic capacity:
Few countries could close their borders and still have more protein than they need. Russia is one. Official figures for 2023 put grain self-sufficiency at 1.8 times the government's target, meat 16 points above its target and fish at 1.8 times.[7, 6] USDA figures agree: Russia produced 99.3 per cent of the beef, pork and chicken it ate in 2025.[4]
The gaps that remain are small. Dairy self-sufficiency has risen from 77 to 87 per cent, still short of the 90 per cent target. Beef stands at 83 per cent, and fruit and berries were planned at 46.7 per cent for 2025.[24, 7]
Output is under some pressure. The cereal area is forecast to fall from 43.66 to 43.24 million hectares in 2026, and the grain union ProZerno expects a harvest 4 per cent smaller.[20] Some reported output comes from occupied Ukrainian farmland.
Resource headroom:
Russia has land and water to spare. It has 0.846 hectares of arable land per person and 29,895 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person a year, far more than farming needs.[18, 19] Only 7.4 per cent of its territory is arable. Climate, short seasons and poor rural roads limit farming more than land does.[27]
The Agriculture Ministry counts nearly 44 million hectares of unused farmland, 20 million of it arable. Its 2022-32 programme aims to bring 13 million hectares back into use. By 2025, 3.3 million had been restored, backed by more than 300 billion roubles for drainage and irrigation.[44, 45] A separate plan targets two million more hectares over three years.[21] Irrigation covers 1.2 million hectares, against a target of 1.8 million.
Money for farming is getting tighter. Agriculture's share of bank lending fell from 6.3 to 3.6 per cent between 2022 and 2024. That took it from half as much again as farming's share of the economy to just below it.[41] Cheap state-backed loans fell from more than 330 billion roubles in 2024 to about 42 billion planned for 2025, and Sberbank stopped offering them.[46, 47] Only about a quarter of the ten-year land target has been met, and less credit may slow the rest.
The pressure on resources comes from feeding animals. Almost nine-tenths of meat comes from animals fed on grain and soy, and compound feed output rose to 36.4 million tonnes in 2024, with 39 million forecast for 2025.[4, 9] Fish farming adds little pressure on the sea. At 390,000 tonnes it is 8 per cent of the wild catch.[11]
Import exposure:
Russia exports grain and fish and nearly feeds itself on meat. Beef and chicken imports of about 655,000 tonnes in 2025 compare with meat consumption of 10.8 million tonnes, about 6 per cent. Pork imports are negligible.[4] Fish is a large export and grain a very large one: 50 million tonnes went to around 115 countries in 2025.[26] None of the imports pass through a sea chokepoint. Dairy comes overland from Belarus, and feed additives and some poultry from China.
What Russia does import comes from very few places. Belarus has replaced almost every other dairy supplier, so one country supplies the 13 per cent of dairy Russia does not produce.[24] Russia also has fewer choices on world markets than its low imports suggest. Sanctions imposed after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine restrict its payments, shipping and insurance, so which suppliers it can use is decided by politics, not price.
Russia's exports go to a few markets too. That puts its export earnings at risk and gives it leverage over buyers, but it does little to its own food supply. Africa and the Middle East take 78 per cent of its wheat. China is its largest food customer, at US$7.7 billion of about US$41 billion in total.[26, 12]
Upstream dependence:
Russia makes its own fertiliser, fuel and feed grain. It relies on imports for feed additives, veterinary medicines and some seeds.
In bulk inputs Russia has few equals. It made a record 63 million tonnes of fertiliser in 2024 and exported 43 million tonnes in 2025, about 70 per cent of output and the most of any country.[25] Fuel is home-produced and feed grain is in surplus. Russia now grows most of its own soy. The 2025 harvest was 9.4 to 9.5 million tonnes, up from 7.1 million in 2024, and soybean purchases from South America fell 63 per cent to 150,000 tonnes between September and November 2025.[10] Fish feed was almost all imported until Norwegian suppliers left in 2022. Russia now makes 100,000 tonnes of it, and imports have fallen from 157,000 tonnes to about 40,000.[9]
Imports still supply about 90 per cent of feed additives, including 32,000 tonnes of vitamins and 158,000 tonnes of amino acids in 2024.[14, 9] Russia aimed to grow 62 per cent of the seed for its main crops in 2025, against a 2030 target of 75 per cent. Import quotas cut maize seed imports without replacing key varieties.[7, 15] Russian poultry breeds supplied about 5 per cent of production in 2024, against a 25 per cent target for 2030.[16]
The government puts home supply at 54 per cent of veterinary medicines and 32 per cent of vaccines in 2025, with 2030 targets of 70 and 61 per cent.[54] China is the main foreign supplier of these and also Russia's biggest food customer, so both dependencies run through one country.
Access and affordability:
In 2024, 12.8 per cent of Russians .[28, 29] was 2.5 per cent in 2023, the lowest level FAO reports, and food insecurity fell from 8.9 to 2.8 per cent between 2016 and 2023.[30, 31] These national figures miss hardship in the far north, where remote towns are supplied by sea and river only in short seasonal windows.[34]
Food inflation has ranged from -0.91 per cent in May 2023 to 23.3 per cent in February 2015. It was 3.4 per cent in June 2026, against 6.0 per cent overall.[32, 40] Russia keeps its grain prices below world levels with export duties and quotas.[20, 48] Between March 2022 and August 2026, flour in the shops rose 10.6 per cent while world cereal prices fell 33.1 per cent. Bread rose 56.7 per cent and beef 68.5 per cent.[49, 50] The controls hold down grain, but the costs of processing, labour and transport still push up other foods.
Between 2021 and 2022 the rouble rose 7.0 per cent, world grain prices in roubles rose 6.9 per cent and food prices in Russia rose 16.1 per cent. By 2024 the rouble had fallen 25.7 per cent below its 2021 level, and food prices rose a further 14.4 per cent.[50, 51, 52] Food prices dipped twice, by 5.3 per cent in 2022 and 2.3 per cent in 2025. Even so, in March 2026 they were 31.6 per cent above March 2022, while world prices were 19.7 per cent lower.[48, 50, 51] A day's minimum wage in 2026 bought 1.20 kg of beef, 2.24 kg of pork or 15.9 kg of flour at late-August prices.[49, 53]
Shock endurance:
Russia's best protection is its export surplus, more than any stockpile. Wheat stocks at the end of 2025/26 are 12.0 million tonnes, 29 per cent of a year's use at home. Behind them is a harvest more than twice what the country needs, which the state can keep at home whenever it chooses. It did so most recently with a 20 million tonne export cap for the second half of 2025/26.[3, 20] The Gulf states buy their security with money. Russia grows it.
Russia has also shown it can replace lost supplies. Dairy self-sufficiency rose from 77 to 87 per cent in the decade after it banned Western food imports, and cheese output rose 132 per cent.[24] After 2022 it brought soy meal and fish feed production home within three years.[10, 9] The diet is varied, with 40 per cent of protein from plants.[2]
Paying for imports in a crisis is the weak point. Gross reserves were US$720.4 billion in June 2026, about 25 months of imports. But about US$300 billion of that has been frozen by Western sanctions since 2022, which cuts the usable cover to nearer 15 months.[37, 38] Sanctions on payments, shipping and insurance also mean money cannot simply outbid others for scarce feed additives or vaccines. World Bank data put social protection coverage at 77.5 per cent of people in 2017. Inflation was 8.7 per cent in 2025.[39, 33]
Other weaknesses add up. In Russia, shocks tend to make food too dear before they make it scarce. When poultry prices rose in 2023, the government allowed 140,000 tonnes in duty-free, and poultry imports rose 33 per cent to more than 300,000 tonnes in 2024.[23] The war economy is fragile. VEB.RF's chief economist expects growth of no more than 1 per cent in 2026, with sanctions, rising taxes and high interest rates pushing investment down. ProZerno reports low grain prices, a shrinking crop area and export earnings 14 per cent behind the previous year.[20] Protein supply of 117.8 grams per person a day means half of it could be lost with people still getting what they need.
Trajectory
Farm output looks set to weaken. The cereal area is shrinking, farm profits are squeezed and the 2026 harvest is forecast 4 per cent below 2025.[20] Cheap credit for bringing land back into use was cut sharply in 2025.[41, 46, 47]
The biggest gains are possible in farm inputs, and policy is aimed there. From January 2027, makers of feed additives can reclaim 20 per cent of the cost of building or upgrading plants, on top of the cheap loans and capital support allowed since 2024.[14] Breeding centres for Smena 9, a Russian broiler breed, are running in Moscow region and being built in Chelyabinsk region.[16] If vaccines reach the 61 per cent target and poultry breeds the 25 per cent target by 2030, Russia's main weakness in farm inputs closes.[54, 16] That may take longer. Russian analysts and industry heads say the home market is too small to make vitamins cheaply, so the plans may not be fully funded.[14]
The main threat is narrow. If China restricted exports of feed additives or veterinary medicines, or a large animal disease outbreak struck while only 32 per cent of vaccines are made at home, poultry would be hit within a six-week cycle and pigs within six months. Russia's grain surplus would not help.