/ world today news/ Agroholding “Econiva” of the German businessman Stefan Dür became the largest producer of milk in Russia – last year his enterprise increased its production by 28 percent to 153,700 tons, according to the annual report of the parent company Ekosem-Agrar GmbH. The number of dairy cows of the group increased by 14 percent to 22,000 cows.
The previous leader – agricultural holding “Krasnyi vostok agro” produced 140,920 tons of milk from 27,100 cows. In third place is the joint venture of Singapore’s Olam International and Russian businessman Naum Babaev “Rusmoloko”. Last year it produced 44,000 tons of milk.
Dürr set foot on Russian soil for the first time in 1989. He was practically sent to collective farms in the Moscow region and Kursk region under an exchange program. He liked it in Russia, the entrepreneur admits in an interview with the American magazine “Forbes”. After a few years, he returned as a consultant to Russian deputies and senators on agricultural legislation. In the mid-1990s, he founded the company “Ekoniva” and started trading in equipment.
The Russian reality made Dür take up agricultural activities, the German told Forbes. The businessman also traded seeds, but he also gave them to farmers against guarantees that they would be returned to him from the new harvest. At some point, however, they stopped returning them and Dürr began growing them himself. For this purpose, he acquired the first 5,000 hectares near Voronezh, Kurs and Orenburg. These were ordinary collective farms. And in each of them, since Soviet times, there were also cattle that could not be slaughtered under any circumstances: the political line of the dairy herd should not be questioned, the entrepreneur recalls. The turn occurred in 2008. Then, during the period of the food crisis of 2007/2008, the agricultural business started to bring good money, and the trade in machinery was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Durr’s turnover in 2010 reached nearly 50 million euros, and in 2014 it increased to 65 million euros, with an increase in net profit from 7.8 million euros to 17.4 million euros.
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