MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia will be able to independently provide itself with foodstuffs by 2020 but will require additional financing, Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier in the day during his state of the nation address that the Russian market should be fully independent of imported foodstuffs by 2020.
3 December 2015, 11:08 GMT
“This is an historic chance for Russia to go onto this level. We have spent tens of billions of dollars buying products from abroad. We can grow everything here in our country except citrus, figs, bananas, and so forth. Vegetables, berries, even oysters and mussels, these are all along the coast of the Black Sea in Crimea. We won’t even mention meat, dairy, and so on,” Tkachev told journalists.
He said this could not be done in a year, but five years would be adequate.
“We will need to find additional financing in the state budget,” Tkachev added.
