Value of Russia’s pork exports exceeds that of poultry
For the first time ever, Russia generated most revenue from pork exports over any other kind of meat, including poultry, in the first 4 months of 2025.
That message was shared by Agroexport, a Russian government agency facilitating agricultural exports. The ongoing rise of Russia’s pork exports marks a noticeable shift in the country’s food trade, Ilya Iliushin, head of Agroexport, told local press.
Over the past years, it was poultry dominating Russia’s food exports, though the gap between export revenue coming from exporting poultry and pork has consistently narrowed. In the same period of 2024, Russian farmers generated US $225 million from selling poultry and US$ 151 million from selling pork to foreign customers.
China has been the primary driver of the Russian pork exports, Iliushin said, explaining that sales to this market jumped more than 6-fold at the beginning of the year, reaching US$ 50 million.
Increased pork demand from Belarus
Added to China’s demand comes an increase in demand for Russian pork from its neighbour Belarus, as explained by Sergey Yushin, chairman of the Russian National Meat Association, in an interview with the Russian branch of Forbes.
In previous years, Belarus was a prominent pork producer and exporter, shipping around 60,000 tons of pork per year to Russia, Yushin said. However, as a result of “complicated epizootic landscape,” the country now needs to import substantial quantities of pork to bridge the gap between supply and demand. Agroexport said that Belarus emerged as the largest importer of Russian pork early 2025, purchasing it for US$ 100 million.
In 2025, Russia will export 8% of manufactured pork, with a total export value expected to exceed US$ 1 billion, according to the Russian Union of Pork Producers (RUPP).
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