Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Russia: organic vegetable-growing do not develop due to absence of legislative base
According to the experts’ opinion, in Russia there are many opportunities for development of the organic agriculture. There are vast land areas, applicable for cultivation of organic vegetables and fruits. According to the specialist’s estimates, the production of these products in the Russian market is much cheaper than in Europe and the products of the Russian farmers are able to compete with the foreign.
Nevertheless, until now, the country practically does not have organic agriculture due to absence of legislative base for it. There are separate farmers, that are engaged in this business but at that they pay for certification to one of the European organizations. Correspondingly, they are forced to sell their products to the EU countries as Russia does not have its own certification system of the organic products.
For more scaled production it is necessary to create a certification system and organs, controlling technological processes in this sphere. V. Kopeikina, the Secretary of CIS alliance “For biosecurity” considers that marking of the organic products is especially important.
“First of all we need a law regarding organic agriculture, -V.Kopeikina said,- Its main point is that it should stipulate certification procedure of ecologically pure products and path of the product from field to counter, conditions of cultivation, soils state etc.”
Today, each developed country has similar legislative base. Among the CIS countries, such law, stipulating production procedure, was accepted in Moldova. At that, there is a question who will have a right to conduct the analysis of organic products and issue certificates. V. Kopeikina underlines that an independent third party should obligatory participate in this question. Definition of the organic products should have the law status, so that the producers and controlling organs have solid ground for their work.
Today, there is only one specialized store in Moscow, selling exclusively organic products. The place of its location (one of the elite settlements near Moscow) in itself defines the circle of potential customers of this product and it is far from the middle class. Other stores are working via Internet, providing home delivery. At that, many trading networks have in their assortment the organic products, main part of which is shipped from the EU countries.
The representatives of the largest specialized stores named the main problems in this sphere: absence of legislative base, certification system, necessary controlling organs. At that, the interrogated managers informed that in case of creation of necessary legal framework, their companies will seriously consider possibility of own farms starting. According to the respondents’ opinion, demand for organic products in Moscow is not high, and on the main part of Russia – close to zero. At the same time, needs in these products is stably increasing among the well-off people.
In the developed countries, where bio-products are cultivated by the local producers, the cost of these products only by 10-40% more than usual ones and they are available to the middle class. According to the information of “Choices” journal, published by the Australian union of customers, high prices are explained by small scales of production. At the same time, the organic produce can not be cheaper than traditional due to high labor intensity of the production.
There is no statistics of organic products sales in Russia. The number of farmers engaged in organic agriculture for foreign sales is also unknown. Therefore, it is impossible to determine how much these products are in demand among population.