May 24 2007, 11:44

The interest to walnut and hazelnut production grows in Ukraine

According to information ""Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits", a growing number of Ukrainian farmers is interested in the opportunity to produce hazelnut and walnut. The inner demand for these products is constantly growing; the prices occupy a rather high level to make nut production a very profitable business. At the present moment at once several producers plant large orchards of walnut and hazelnut trees mostly in the southern and central regions of Ukraine. Ukraine has a rather good experience in walnut production; at the same time, many growers perceive hazelnut as the crop, which is not cultivated in Ukraine.

At the same time, a close relative of hazelnut, "leschina" is widely spread throughout Ukraine. Both plants belong to the filbert genus, the family of hazelnuts. Wild trees are often called "leschina", cultivated trees are called "hazelnut". To the experts' opinion, hazelnut, or filbert tree, is a natural hybrid of ordinary, large and pontiy leschina. These plants mostly differ due the fact that hazelnuts are 3-4 times larger in size than the nuts of leschina, and they taste better. Twelve hazelnut varieties are zoned in Ukraine; they were selected in Ukrainian scientific-research institute of forest farming and agro-forest-melioration.

Ukraine is one of the largest hazelnut importers in Europe mostly due to the growing demand from the side of the dynamically developing confectionary industry. Ukrainian companies mostly import hazelnuts from Turkey and the EU countries. According to FAO statistics, five largest hazelnut producers are Turkey (70% of global production), Italy (12% of market), USA (5%) and Azerbaijan (2%). The hazelnut production is actively developed in Georgia: this country is also building up the export of the additionally handled hazelnut to Ukraine, Russia and the EU countries.

To the opinion of the analysts of ""Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" , Ukrainian companies may freely invest money to the production of high quality hazelnut: they will hardly face problems to sell produce. At the same time, they'll have to solve major problems: the polishing of the production technologies and the produce post harvest handling.