Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
"Red" road to Kherson - the farmers of the region experience serious problems to sell tomato
As tomato producers from Kherson oblast inform, this year it is a real problem to sell tomato. Long queues of those who are willing to sell tomato are formed now near the processors' collection points. Naturally, the price on tomato dropped down to the critically low level in the region - there are offers of tomato on USD 0.003-0.04/kg. The other factor of the excessive tomato supply is the lower activity of the buyers from other regions of Ukraine, mainly because of the grown fuel cost. One of the wholesalers purchasing commodities in the region said: "The roads in Kherson oblast are red with tomatoes sold roadside".
Past year the significant acreage of tomato suffered from blight, the supply of the product was lesser and the prices were much higher. The situation observed this year will make the tomato producers think over the further development of their business. On one hand, many large producers are considering the option to buy harvesters on purpose to decrease the production cost to minimum; on the other hand, the other producers plan to earn money on early tomato varieties. The specialists also observe the deepening specialization among the farms - step by step the producers stop to produce the universal varieties suitable both for freshmarket and for processing and not called for any of them as a result. They start to grow special varieties fit for only one of the mentioned sales channels.