As we reported earlier, the aggressor’s propaganda began to explain the sharp rise in the price of butter by anything from “increasing incomes for the population” to “rising packaging costs”.
However, since the rise in prices for all dairy products cannot be explained by such “justifications”, the occupiers were forced to admit a reduction in the cattle population on the occupied peninsula.
And if in 2015 in the Russia-occupied AR of Crimea its population was at the level of 122.4 thousand heads, of which 58.2 thousand were cows, then by the end of the summer of 2024, as the occupiers now admit, its total population amounted to 93.2 thousand, which is 7% less than last year, and of this number, cows – 42.5 thousand, which is 6.5% less than last year.
It is acknowledged that “the cost of keeping cows has increased significantly”, including the prices of electricity, hay and feed grain, with the growth of real farm expenses for these needs amounting to 30-40% over the year.
Ana more, “Crimean farmers” complain that milk prices do not rise when purchased, and at the same time, “four liters of product” have begun to be made from one liter of natural milk at “processing plants”.
At the same time, “large-scale subsidies” in this area from the occupiers amount to 5 rubles per liter, but they are paid, or rather laundered, only in “large farms” like the “dairy empire” of Dmitry Tabachnik described by us.
Here, the formal filter for “small farms” has become the requirement for a large number of hired workers, despite the fact that “finding a milkmaid even for 50 thousand rubles is difficult”.
In such a situation, a further reduction in livestock numbers and an increase in final prices for dairy products, even those made from natural raw materials, by only a quarter is, to put it mildly, not surprising.