Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Poltava farmers - vegetable producers complain again on the bad weather
According to the comments of the farmers and owners of the house plots of Poltava oblast, the season 2005 is turning out to be even less vegetable productive than the season 2004. The main reason for the modest harvest is the unfavorable weather conditions, on which the producers are readily pleading for. Truly saying, one of the main factors of the situation is the almost complete absence of the modern vegetable production technologies in the region, which are able to smooth over the influence of weather conditions. To the opinion of the Agronomists of the Agricultural Marketing Project, the farmers are to implement more actively new technologies, such as irrigation, the integral plant protection systems, etc., and not to complain on the weather.
As Nikolay Pustovit (Pustovit and sons farm), one of the most successful farmers among the agricultural producers in the oblast, says, "it is practically no problem to sell the quality produce in the region, but it is problematic to produce marketable fruits and vegetables and, moreover, to store the produce for some time, if necessary". A rather interesting trend is observed in the region. Oleg Smolka, the Agronomist of Poltava AMP office, states, that 70% of the successful producers are those who have not been directly involved in the agricultural production before. They study the perspectives of fruit and vegetable production beforehand, they see the importance of funds investment to the "full technological package" of this or that crop production.
As a result - the new comers, basing on the specialists' consultations and recommendations, often perform better than the native villagers, who follow the "inborn agronomic intuition". Nikolay Pustovit says, "It is better to have 100 tons of tomatoes from 1 hectare, than 10 tons from each of 10 hectares - both health and nerves will be saved". Besides, the production cost will be lower, and profit - higher. Just as people say: better less but better.