August 28 2006, 13:25

Top gross harvest of tomato will affect the prices

According to the forecasts made in the first half 2006 by the Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP), the increase of gross tomato harvest should have been around 5% this season. Tomato acreage was expected to grow 6%, harvested acreage - 1%, tomato yield - 4%.

However, taking into account weather conditions (quite favorable for tomatoes this year), the forecast will be significantly adjusted, AMP informs the "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal. We have already mentioned that the season 2006 is likely to be the record year for the recent ten years as for volume of tomato production. The gross harvest will exceed 1.4 mln. tons. In average, 1.15 mln. tons of tomatoes used to be annually produced during seven previous years.

The increased tomato production this season will inevitably result in quite low prices in season of active harvesting. At the same time, the specialists are sure that much depends on the activeness of the enterprises which purchase tomato.

You can read the updated forecast of tomato production and prices in September issues of "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal.