May 15 2006, 17:05

Zakarpattya canneries plan to load 70% of the processing capacities with locally produced cucumber

Zakarpattya farmers started to sow cucumber seeds to the open ground, according to the information provided by "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal. As to evaluations done by Aleksander Koval, the Marketing Specialist of the Agricultural Marketing Project, this year cucumber acreage is expected to grow 10-15% in the oblast comparing to the data 2005. Large regional producers mainly sell cucumber to canneries, which managers forecast an average purchase price for 6-9 sm cucumber to be about $ 0.34/kg this year. If the forecasts come true, the cucumber price will be around $0.39/kg on fresh market. Mr. Koval says this price will be significantly less than in 2005.

We'll remind that the weather conductions were unfavorable for Zakarpattya cucumber producers in 2005; as a result of the poor harvest both processors and fresh market players suffered from the lack of this crop. As for today, Mr. Koval says, major canneries have contracted about 70% of cucumber raw material supplies, mainly via future harvest from local producers. Canneries plan to organize supplies from the Southern Ukraine if cucumber shortage is observed in the region.

Zakarpattya oblast is the largest cucumber processor in Ukraine. There are about ten canneries which purchase cucumber for processing needs. They are such large enterprises as MIKALAND, GREEN-RAY, UNIVER, Mukachevo VERES cannery.

Private farms are the main cucumber producers in Zakarpattya oblast. They manage around 0.1-0.3 ha of cucumbers and apply drip irrigation, trellis systems. If the weather conditions are favorable, the producers can harvest up to 70 tons of cucumber per hectare.

At the same time farmers and private producers complain for the lack of labor resources (up to 20 people are needed to cultivate 1 hectare of cucumber in season). Only some of them can afford to extend cucumber acreage significantly despite of the quarantined produce sales.