Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
AMP Participated in the Seminar "Land Reform and Small Business Development in Rural Area" in Izmail, Odesa oblast
Agricultural Marketing Project has gained valuable practical experience in small business development in rural area, so it gladly accepted the invitation of Ukrainian Educational Reform Center to participate in the event "Land Reform and Small Business Development in Rural Area". At the same time, on March 22th - 23th, 2004 the journalists from Odesa, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy and Kyrovograd oblasts worked in the joint press-club. Two meetings were held in Farmer Association "Pridunavye" premises, Izmail, Odesa oblast.
AMP specialists - Andriy Yarmak, Oleksandr Lasinskiy, Raisa Volik, Fedir Rybalko - told the journalists about AMP achievements concerning small business development and creation of new working places in rural area. For example, in a short period from the beginning of practical activities AMP specialists helped the producers to sign contracts on fruit and vegetable supply to supermarkets and processors on total sum of 2,3 mln UAH, despite of the fact that sales season for farmers was nearly over.
The journalists turned to AMP with the reasonable question: "Why do you focus exactly on fruits and vegetables?" After the thorough analysis of market situation, AMP analysts were persuaded that a farmer who has 50 hectares of production land and produces fruits and vegetables, at present time has much more possibilities to receive greater profit than a farm producing 10 thousands of wheat and sunflowers. Moreover, every additional hectare creates minimum 15-20 season jobs with the payments minimum 300-500 UAH per month and 1-3 jobs in the related sectors such as transport, input supplies, processing, merchandising, etc. So when AMP helps only one farmer to sell cucumbers from 10 hectares of production lands, the Project assists not only the farmer and his family, but provides the possibility to earn 10-20,000 UAH in average in a month for other village inhabitants. This is only one example. We can give thousands of them. Do not forget that people tend to follow the successful examples.
The journalists were very interested in AMP market information system, developed under support of the private informational agency "APK-Inform". The farmers who were present on the press-conference had also highly appreciated the operational efficiency and usefulness of the system.
Agricultural Marketing Project expresses gratitude to the organizations of the seminar and calls the Ukrainian journalists for cooperation in the field of spreading rural life improvement experience gained by the Project.