On Monday, we ran a news story about Russian meat firm Cherkizovo’s plans to ramp up pork production. It was at least the 15^th time in the last 10 years that we’ve run a story about that company. Maybe it’s our last.

Certainly, its publication amidst the Russian invasion of the Ukraine was a trigger for some readers, who felt the timing was essentially in poor taste. I have similar emotions about the war, and I have reasons to have run the story, but ultimately it raises an interesting question: Do we write off all things Russia?

To be sure, our core news coverage area is the meat and poultry processing arena in North America. As with Cherkizovo, however, we periodically cover big moves by big players on a broader international level. On the most basic level, then, the company’s significant ramp-up of pork production is news in our meat-news world. In a historic sense, meanwhile, the Russian market has been one of intrigue, given both the potential (once the largest market for U.S. poultry exports, for example) and the problems caused by frayed political relations.

That being said, I understand the sensitivity around this latest mention. And contrary to some comments suggesting otherwise, I am fully aware of the atrocities unfolding across the Ukraine; I am tuned in every day to a variety of news and social media services, I am saddened by the unjust loss of lives, and I am hopeful for a speedy return to peace — as well as for severe penalties against the aggressor, Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s policies, however, don’t mean that news in his country’s meat industry doesn’t exist, even if the suffocating sanctions against those policies and the resultant decimation of the Russian rouble will make efforts by the likes of Cherkizovo’s tenuous. How his policies further isolate Russia and its people from the outside agricultural world will be interesting to see.

This is all to say that, in doing my job, I wouldn’t choose to not write about Russia because of its policies that I personally disagree with, in the same way that my job requires coverage of Smithfield Foods regardless of its oft-cited Chinese ownership. I would choose to not write about Russian meat interests, however, if they become inconsequential to our readers.

For some readers, they may have been rendered inconsequential by Putin’s actions alone. For others, including those who have done or who are doing business in Russia, that moment won’t come as quickly.

That will only come when there is nothing to gain from doing business with Russia. That will only come when there is no hope for change in that country’s government. And that, like the events unfolding in Ukraine, will also be a sad moment.

Is that moment now? (And that's not a rhetorical question.)

War torn

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