Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
The delay of ripening of the early commodities may result in the dramatically falling incomes for Zakarpattya farmers
The terms of harvesting of early tomato, cucumber, pepper, sweet cherry, strawberry, potato and cabbage have been postponed on at least two weeks in Zakarpattya oblast.
Aleksander Matviets, the Agronomist of Zakarpattya office, Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP), says: "As a result of the unfavorable weather conditions which have not been observed in Zakarpattya for the recent 20 years - low temperature, rainy and cloudy weather, lack of the effective heat sum - the vegetation period of cucumber, tomato and pepper seedlings is severely delayed, up to 15-20 days. The same factors influenced the term of early cabbage supplies on market - comparing to the average data the harvesting time for this crop has been delayed for about 3 weeks. There are usually early sweet cherry, strawberry, early potato this time on the oblast markets, and this year you won't find any of these commodities for sale on the markets".
Despite of the delays of the harvesting time, at present moment the weather let us hope for a good fruit and vegetable harvest, but only if all the agricultural measures are taken strictly according to the technologies, to the opinion of the specialist.
As Maxim Yenchenko, the AMP Market Information Specialist, considers, this situation may have a negative impact on the revenues got by the farmers - producers of early fruit and vegetable commodities. On the one hand, the hampered entering in the fruiting stage may make this period shorter than usual, so that the gross harvest will be decreased. On the other hand, the early commodities from this region will come later to market missing the period of the highest prices, so that the competitors from the other regions are sure to skim the cream off.