While Russia keeps their ban on dairy imports from the European Union, the United States and Australia, it has lifted its boycott dairy breeding animals and material from from Europe. The boycott began in 2012 on account of Schmallenberg infection and Bluetongue episodes in the European Union.
As indicated by USDA, Russian milk production dropped around 2% and is expected to drop 2% in 2015. The lifting of the cattle import ban might be an attempt to forestall those declines.
Russian dairy manufacturers are processing more liquid milk into value-added products such as cheese and butter. The import ban on dairy products means cheese imports are predicted to decline 134,000 metric tons in 2014.
It is anticipated that domestic processors will increase cheese production by 20,000 tons by 2015, replacing some of the previous import volumes. With butter, forecasts suggest that Russian manufacturers will increase production sufficiently to replace the banned import volumes.
