September 17 2008, 17:33

Ukraine: the areas under apple gardens may substantially decrease

Low prices for industrial apples in this season and sharp decrease of purchases by the concentrated products producers may cause mass felling of old gardens in Ukraine next year, according to the experts from the largest fruit-growing enterprises. As it was earlier reported, this year the processors lowered the purchasing prices for raw material by almost two times compared to the last year that with the increased costs for harvesting and transportation of apples reduced producers’ profits to minimum. That is why, many fruit-growers do not except they will be forced to uproot the old gardens to use the area under cultivation of more profitable agrarian crops such as potatoes, rapeseeds and sunflower.

According to the data of “Fruit-Inform” project , the trend of shortening of total area under apple gardens has been observed in Ukraine for several years. That is mainly a result of uprooting of old gardens that are the main suppliers of industrial apples for the processing industry. At the same time, the area under intensive gardens continues to increase.

Coming prospects for the market of industrial and trade apples in Ukraine and Russia will be discussed by the leading experts during the largest industrial conferences “Vegetables and Fruits of Ukraine 2008” and “Fruit & Vegetables Business of Russia-2008” .