Among other fallout of the current economic crisis, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is concerned about falling cattle numbers in his country and has called on the country’s Ag Ministry to deal with the problem.

"The number of cattle in our country has begun declining very sharply in recent years and no businessmen could stop this trend as the number of cattle continued to fall," he said at a meeting with members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia at his Moscow residence.

Russian authorities have been forced to import a large number of cattle and spent a great deal of money on this, he said. "Subsidized loans were allocated for this. Each loan was essentially subsidized by the government by 95%," he said.

As a result, Russia has managed to build a rather large number of facilities to raise cattle for meat and milk. "The main goal now is to make sure this doesn't stop during the crisis," Medvedev said.