September 30 2005, 14:16 Agrarian Marketing Project

Producers of tomatoes for fresh market say that this season was unfortunate in Odesa oblast

Tomato producers in Odesa oblast are dissatisfied with the results of this season, especially those who sell produce on fresh market. The average yield of this crop was lower than a year ago, to the opinion of many producers. To the specialists' opinion, the weather conditions were this year more favorable for many vegetable crops, nevertheless, their yield was affected by cool beginning of summer, which hampered the ripening for 1-2 weeks, and hot and dry July-August, which led to lack of moisture in soil. The fields were also hardly damaged by hail happened in the end of July. In the beginning of field tomato season the retail prices on Odesa markets were 15-50% higher the price level in the same period a year ago; still further local tomatoes had to compete with the commodities from Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts, where the excessive tomato production was observed. That time many local producers faced difficulties to sell tomato (especially its "plum" varieties) on fresh markets.

Those Odessa producers, who were oriented on tomato production for processing, are more satisfied with the result. This year the purchase prices were higher on USD 0.018-0.024/kg comparing to the previous year both for whole tomato pickling and for pulp production. There were no problems observed this year concerning to tomato sales for processing enterprises, the supply season is still going on. The stable warm weather let farmers harvest tomatoes per maximum.