Unsold vegetables could bring UAH 2.5-2.7 billion additional earnings a year - Ukrainian Agribusiness Club
The Ukrainian Agribusiness Club made public this statistics, Ukrinform reports.
“Vegetables lost for the sale could annually bring about UAH 2.5-2.7 billion of additional earnings to Ukrainian farmers. The main reason of such considerable losses consists in lack of vegetable storage facilities. The majority of the existing facilities were left for us as heritage from the Soviet Union, respectively storage technologies are obsolete and do not meet modern requirements. This problem questions the existence of many vegetable producers as such, since this type of “fruit and vegetable” business loses its attractiveness with considerable losses,” AgriEvant Director of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club Anatoliy Tsyrkun has noted.
According to him, general need in vegetable storage facilities currently is estimated at 4.1 million tons. As of the beginning of 2013, by results of certification, Ukrainian agricultural producers have only 32% of necessary vegetable storage capacities (1.3 million tons) or 14% of the forecasted gross yield of vegetables (potatoes excluding) at 9 - 9.5 million tons.
To remind, the State Program for intensification of the economy development for 2013-2014, envisages construction of 16 powerful vegetable storage facilities of total capacity up to 140,000 tons.
In particular, according to the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, cabbage was lost at 22% of the gross yield of 2012 (410-440,000 tons), red beets - 35% (315-345,000 tons), carrots - 30% (260-280,000 tons), onions - 32% (353-375,000 tons) and potatoes - 23% (5-6 million tons).
