By early June, in most regions of Russia, potato planting was already completed. There is time to analyze: what seeds do domestic farms rely on and how this may affect the upcoming crop.
What are we planting?
According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, domestic agricultural organizations and farms grow potatoes annually on an area of about 300 thousand hectares. Accordingly, at least 900 thousand tons of seeds are used for planting in the industrial sector. What can be said about the quality of this seed material? Based on official information, not much.
As the executive director of the Potato Union Alexei Krasilnikov notes, the lion's share (about 95%) of the certification of seed lots today is carried out by the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Rosselkhoztsentr" (about 5% - "Rosselkhoznadzor"). At the same time, according to the statistics of the Russian Agricultural Center, the bulk of the contracts concluded by this organization with seed producers are contracts for field approbation. At the request of seed producers, specialists of the Rosselkhoztsentr conduct field surveys of seed sowing in order to determine its varietal purity, weediness, disease and pest damage.
That is, potential seed is evaluated prior to harvesting. The department receives significantly fewer applications for certification of seed potatoes (according to 2017, certificates of conformity were issued for seeds up to 100 thousand tons). It is worth noting that the presence of a certificate of conformity for a batch of seeds does not guarantee a high yield to the buyer. According to Alexei Krasilnikov, in Russia, certificates of conformity are most often issued not for superelite, but for potatoes of the second and even third reproductions, which subsequently cannot but affect the volume of gross fees. For comparison, in European countries, potatoes of the third reproduction are prohibited for cultivation.
In general, as the executive director of the Potato Union of the Russian Federation emphasizes, the share of certified seed material today is no more than 10-15% of the total number of potatoes used by commodity producers for planting.
VARIETIES IN THE TOP TEN OF LEADERS: FOREIGN & DOMESTIC
According to the statistics of the Potato Union of the Russian Federation, 70-80% of certified seed material is potatoes of ten leading varieties. Approximately the same ratio is maintained in the share of commodity landings. In the top ten currently there are only two varieties of Russian selection: Nevsky and Luck. And both of them are well known to potato growers for at least 20 years.
Why do manufacturers use such a limited set of varieties and more often opt for imported achievements?
Let's start with the fact that potato growers really have a choice. The Russian "State Register of Breeding Achievements Approved for Use" contains 435 varieties, most of them are domestic. According to the head of the breeding center of the V. Lorkha Evgeniy Simakov, there is nothing wrong with the presence of foreign varieties in our market.
Russians should take advantage of the best achievements of world selection. But domestic varieties need to take more prominent positions in Russian fields - in order to increase the country's economic and food security. Moreover, as the scientist is convinced, modern Russian varieties in terms of the main parameters (yield, adaptability and consumer qualities of tubers) are not inferior to the most popular foreign varieties.
True, far from all agricultural producers are ready to accept this fact as an axiom.
Some of them are sure that Russian varieties at this stage, if they are able to show high results, it is only in ideal conditions of the experimental plots.
Many people choose the achievements of foreign selection because they are used to them over the past decades and are sure of success (varieties provide guaranteed yield, potatoes have an attractive appearance, retail chains are willing to buy it). For a significant part of farms, agronomic support provided by representatives of foreign seed companies to their customers is of great importance. “Specialists come, control the planting, the cultivation process,” says Pavel Starchenko, director of Meridian LLC (Chelyabinsk region).
- In my opinion, this fact shows that the supplier is serious about the reputation of his company and is rooting for the result. He will not let "ruin the brand".
A number of farms refuse experiments with Russian varieties due to the lack of growing technology. Mikhail Gorbunov, chief agronomist of the Potato Kurgan farm, notes that his company plans to start working with domestic varieties, but no one can predict how long they will last in the farm line. For a commercial enterprise, the result is decisive: productivity indicators, marketability.
But whether the farm will be able to grow Russian potatoes in such a way as to unleash the full potential of the variety is not known: there is no data on the features of agricultural technology. For example, you have to build a plant protection scheme, not knowing how resistant they are to the effects of herbicides. In this regard, working with foreign material is much simpler: the manufacturer always indicates this information in the variety description, thereby eliminating unnecessary risks.
There are other objective reasons that hinder the growth of the popularity of domestic varieties in the country. The most important of these are the lack of advertising and the lack of seed material.
Evgeny Simakov notes that since 2000, the Russian seed potato market has already undergone a three-fold change of seeds of foreign selection, while the set of domestic seeds has not changed. To advance Russian achievements, it is necessary to produce significant amounts of elite, which is impossible to organize only through the efforts of scientific institutions.
Today, scientists themselves are trying to change the situation by the ratio of domestic and foreign varieties on the market. So, this year at the Potato exhibition in Cheboksary, a representative of the Lorch All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Farm invited interested producers to test seeds of new domestic varieties.
Those interested were found in a number of Russian regions, among which the republics of Chuvashia and Bashkiria; Vologda, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Kaluga, Tyumen, Astrakhan, Belgorod regions; Krasnoyarsk Territory and others. Perhaps in the next season this list will still expand, and the problem will move from a dead point.
POTATO OF BELARUSIAN SELECTION
In 2017, 5 tons of seed potatoes were imported to Russia from the Republic of Belarus - slightly less than from the Netherlands. The interest of Russian producers in varieties of Belarusian selection is quite understandable: after two fruitful, but financially not very successful seasons, it was not affordable for everyone to buy seed from far abroad countries.
What are the other advantages of the achievements of the Belarusian selection?
According to Aleksandr Kuznetsov, executive director of the Ustyuzhensky Potato SPSCK, Belorussian varieties are resistant to viruses (including Y virus) and, not so sharply, in comparison with foreign varieties, reduce yield when planting seeds of the third and fourth reproductions.
Alexander Kuznetsov notes that some Belarusian varieties (Breeze, Manifesto, Lel, Palace, etc.) have proven themselves on Russian soil and are in demand by customers from various regions of the country. It is likely that in the near future there will be more such varieties; promising new products appear annually. Although before replicating them across the country, each variety must be tested for two to three years in Russian conditions. During this period, he can demonstrate features not advertised by breeders.
But the main difficulty that prevents these varieties from taking root in Russia is the lack of pure source material of high reproductions. Many agricultural producers buy seeds not from research institutes, but from private farms, and the result does not always meet expectations. Thus, the reputation of the variety is seriously damaged.
However, this problem is not unique to Belarusian seeds.
MARKET IN GRAY TONES
Where do Russian table potato producers get seed?
Most large agricultural holdings and many medium-sized farms have been customers of foreign seed companies and their Russian representative offices for many years. A small part of the seed material of high reproductions is supplied to the market by specialized scientific organizations.
According to VNIIKH them. Lorha, currently in Russia continue the production of original seed potatoes of 12 scientific institutions. The total amount of original seed material produced by them in the super-super-elite category (mainly domestic varieties) varies between 3-3,5 thousand tons annually.
Seed farms are also involved in the sale of seed material, including 156 enterprises (as of January 1, 2018) that have passed the voluntary certification system of the Russian Agricultural Center for the Production of Seed Potatoes and are included in the Register.
Interestingly, not all of them actually produce seed potatoes, in any case, certified. According to the Potato Union, which analyzed information on certificates of conformity issued by the Agricultural Center in the period from 2014 to 2017, 60 seed farms from the Register for this entire period did not receive a single certificate for potatoes. At the same time, 27 farms not included in the Register have issued 495 certificates over the same years.
This is not the first year that industry experts have been saying that the seed potato market in Russia remains largely “gray”: a large number of seeds without documents are put up for sale, and such seed material is in demand. Seeds without certificates are readily purchased, for example, by producers of early marketable potatoes from the southern regions.
Although agricultural enterprises, which are faced with the task of obtaining a high-quality crop and preserving it for a long period, relate to the issue of seed purchase with great attention.
“Used to buy blind, now taught by bitter experience, - explains the director of LLC "Meridian" Pavel Starchenko. - We select certified material, study the information about the batch on the Rosselkhoznadzor website, plus we send our specialists to the seller so that they are present at the bulkhead. When you invest your money in production, every ruble counts. "
But for some consumers, the availability of certificates does not always become a sufficient basis for a purchase.
Chief Agronomist of Potato CJSC Mikhail Gorbunov notes that when choosing a supplier of seed potatoes for farming, he first draws attention to the proximity of the seller of seed to the originator. But the purchase of seed from little-known seed farms that have opened their meristem laboratories is very cautious. According to his observations, there are not very many professionals in this industry in Russia, therefore there are frequent cases when the material obtained as a result of microclonal propagation, although it does not carry a viral load, loses some of the properties of the variety.
FAST PROSPECTS
What needs to be done to make the seed potato market in Russia more transparent, civilized?
Most seed growers interviewed by the editors when writing this material see a way out in tightening production rules and assessing the quality of seed material.
Critical remarks are made to the new standard GOST 33996-2016 “Potato seeds. Technical conditions and methods for determining quality ”, which entered into force on January 1, 2018.
In it, according to some experts, the permissible values for indicators of plant infection with viral and bacterial infections are still overestimated.
The new GOST for seed potatoes gives the seed grower more chances for error. We are becoming less demanding on the quality of Russian seed. This is bad for the consumer, experts say.
Many advocate the introduction of mandatory certification of seed material.
“I am for making certification of seed material mandatory rather than voluntary, - says the executive director of the Ustyuzhensky Potato SSSK Alexander Kuznetsov. - Seed renewal is an expensive pleasure for the farm, and we must reduce the purchase risks by ousting unscrupulous producers from the market. "
The same point of view is supported by the head of the breeding center of the All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Farming named after Lorkh Yevgeny Simakov. In his opinion, the mandatory certification of potato seed, on the one hand, will increase the share of high-quality seed on the seed potato market, on the other hand, it will ensure a more objective distribution of subsidies for its purchase by commodity producers.
It is difficult to predict whether the authorities agree with these considerations. But it is obvious that the seed potato market needs changes, and it will largely depend on them whether Russian table potato producers can grow a product that meets the increasingly stringent business requirements for product quality and collection volumes.