Food prices are rising rapidly in the occupied Crimea. Especially when it comes to meat, eggs, and dairy products. According to Crimeans, the price tags change every week, while the occupiers assure the population that everything will soon become cheaper because some serious investors are about to come to the peninsula. We checked what the propagandists said and then talked to farmers, villagers and food market experts.

Even the occupiers themselves are no longer able to hide the fact that livestock products have risen in price. Last week, the self-proclaimed Minister of Agriculture of Crimea Denis Kratyuk said that the only way to stop the price increase is to increase domestic production, so it is necessary to increase the share of Crimean milk on the market by 10% and eggs by 15%. Local experts partially agree with the official: expensive logistics have a significant impact on Crimean prices.

“Freight transportation across the Crimean bridge is prohibited, and the route via the land corridor through Rostov is longer and therefore more expensive,” says Andriy Vershytskyi, PhD in Economics, explaining why Crimea needs to develop its own agricultural production.

However, Crimean farmers are in no hurry to “develop”. There are many reasons for this - from high production costs at low purchase prices to extremely bureaucratic processes. Plus the complete unpredictability of collaborating officials, who can, for example, declare a quarantine without any real reason and slaughter all cows within a hundred kilometers.

“If you look at the entire chain from the barn to the carton of milk in the store, there is not a single strong position. You can start with grazing at least. I'm ready to increase the herd, but where am I going to graze it? Everything around me is divided up, and everyone wants a lot of money for grazing. Even though the grass burns out in summer and is not as juicy even in spring, it lacks moisture without a canal,” Rustem, a farmer from Dzhankoy district, tells CEMAAT. “Then there is animal husbandry. This includes hay, water, heating, ventilation. All utilities are very expensive this year. Taxes have also increased. And the purchase price for milk is stagnant at 26 rubles per liter (about 11 hryvnias - Ed.). This is because there are few dairies left and they do not compete for raw materials,” says Rustem. He also notes that there were many difficulties with permits, technical regulations and all kinds of standards before, but now the  tracking system "Mercury" has added to the farmers' headaches, requiring them to declare literally every step on the farm. “If you buy a ton of feed, you have to enter the data. Collected a hundred liters of milk - enter the data. If the veterinary control hadn't come after that, it would have been possible to understand somehow, but they just added problems from above to make it completely unprofitable for small farms to raise livestock,” the farmer states.

The Crimean “ministry” does not even promise to make life easier for local farmers. According to officials, they are currently negotiating with some investors to build two farms for two thousand cattle each. The Crimeans do not believe in the success of such projects: without a proper water supply, there is no point in investing in livestock farming on the peninsula.

“We keep hearing these fairy tales about milk rivers every year. There is no normal fodder base here. Karachay-Cherkessia has one. Kabardino-Balkaria, too. The pastures there are much better than in Crimea. As a result, milk yields are one and a half times higher. There is no need to go through checkpoints with hours-long inspections to deliver feed or equipment. There is no risk that tomorrow water will be given on schedule and in limited quantities. So where will an investor go in such a situation? Why would he go to Crimea?”

wonders Mykola, a cattle-breeding worker from Simferopol district. He also recalls a story about a fictitious brucellosis epidemic in the Bilohirsk district that ruined several livestock farms two years ago. Some farmers received money from the budget to buy elite breeding cows and used it to buy ordinary “buryonkas”, giving a share to veterinary supervision. And then the chief veterinarian Valerii Ivanov had a falling out with the local gauleiter Serhii Aksionov, and the latter began to expose his dealings. To “hide the ends,” Ivanov declared a brucellosis epidemic in the region and introduced measures to seize cattle, slaughter them, and instantly cremate them. All farms were affected, not just those whose owners were involved in the corruption scheme.

Among other “attractive” features of Crimea for investors, Mykola also mentions the active use of the peninsula in hostilities against Ukraine.

“Just last week in Slavne (Razdolnensky district of Crimea - Ed.) a rocket fell in the middle of a field. The crater was eight meters in diameter. They say they launched a missile at Odesa, but it didn't reach. If a herd was grazing there, it would have killed half of them. And then who would we ask for the damage? Or last year, a colleague told me that some Buryats came and gave him two hours to take the cows away because they decided to make a warehouse with ammunition in his barn. Do you think that an investor, weighing their risks, will not know about these situations?” - says the villager and summarizes:

“There's nothing you can do about the rise in prices now, so stop pulling people's leg. It's the only they can do, and it's cheap, it's home-grown.”