Gas Price Increase Will Have a Hard Effect on The Greenhouse Industry of Ukraine
The status of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine concerning gas prices are still uncertain. In spite of this, the chance to keep the previous price of $ 50/thousand m3 of gas appears to be grim and the price could increase to $160/thousand m3 or more. What will national greenhouses do if such a situation occurs? Gas expense is a key component in production costs of greenhouse fruits and vegetables.
Presently, gas constitutes 40-50% of the cost structure for a majority of Ukrainian greenhouses. However, the most advanced complexes that are equipped with modern technologies are able to decrease gas share down to 35%.
"If gas price reaches $ 160/thousand m3 greenhouses won't go bankrupt, but the returns will decrease several fold. Bankruptcy threatens only small low-effective greenhouse farms," Vladimir Ilyich Chernyshenko says. Mr. Chernyshenko is the Director of the Open Joint-Stock Company Kombinat Teplichniy. He thinks gas share in the cost structure will grow up to 60-80% if the present planting schedule is kept. There are two primary solutions to safeguard the greenhouses' sustainability. First, is to move planting forward by 1-1.5 months, from early January to February. About one third of the consumed gas can be saved this way. But, produce will be supplied later to the market. The second solution is to install energy-saving technologies. For example, in the mid 90's greenhouses used about 6 m3 to produce one kilo of the greenhouse commodities, but now 1.1 -1.7 m3 and even less is required in southern Ukraine.
About 70 greenhouse complexes are now working in Ukraine; the largest of them are located near large cities, which are consumption centers, such as Kyiv, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Simferopol, and Lviv. Experts estimate the acreage of glass greenhouses in Ukraine to be about 500 ha.