Extreme weather events such as heat waves, heavy rainfall, flooding, and very high temperatures such as
this year in the European territory of Russia, will be repeated more often, and the heat will be more intense.
Olga Zolina,
Senior Researcher, Institute of Oceanology named after P.P. Shirshov RAS, one of the authors of the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
A list of major issues affecting the industry this season will begin with the word drought. Meanwhile, we all know that this particular problem has a solution, the effectiveness of which has been repeatedly tested. Will this year give an impetus to accelerate the implementation of irrigation technologies in Russia? And why are they so important to the development of the potato business? We are discussing these issues with Timur Sultanov, General Director of AquaTerra LLC (the company specializes in the supply of pumps and pumping stations for irrigation projects).
- Timur, the weather conditions of the summer of 2021 and high prices for potatoes are two factors that, in our opinion, could not but affect the sales of irrigation equipment in the country. Are you experiencing increased market demand this year?
- Of course, such bursts of heat strongly stimulate the market, and the availability of free funds for agricultural producers accelerates the decision-making process and the implementation of projects.
In 2006, when I was just starting to work in this business, 90% of agricultural producers from Central Russia and the Volga region accepted the offer to put irrigation equipment on their fields with surprise: then no one watered potatoes in these regions. Then 2010 came and proved that growing potatoes without watering is a very risky business.
This season, we do receive more orders, but the development of irrigation in Russia is greatly hampered by the coronavirus. It's no secret that European factories are now working very slowly. This problem concerns not only irrigation equipment, large tractor manufacturers, for example, are already accepting applications for 2023 at the moment.
With pumping stations, everything is not so sad, but nevertheless: at the moment we take orders for John Deer engines for May, for Iveco - for April.
- Scientists predict that literally in the coming decades, the climate in Russia will change so much that the main agricultural
production from the Krasnodar Territory will shift towards Siberia. Do you feel the change in the geography of projects?
- Perhaps not so globally. We note the movement "to the north": we have customers in the Yaroslavl region, Suzdal. But irrigation is now developing throughout the country. In any, even traditionally not very hot region, farmers understand that drought during
budding or at the end of flowering greatly reduces the quality and yield of potatoes. Losses are on average one ton per hectare, that is, if the period without rains lasts 20 days, the farmer loses 20 t / ha. And we are not talking about the quality of the resulting potatoes now.
- How do you assess the level of irrigation development in the Urals and Siberia?
- So far there are few implemented projects, but I think that literally in a year or two, orders will pour in from the regions of the Urals and Siberia. All the prerequisites for the development of irrigation are there: the climate is quite arid, and there is water that can be distributed over the fields. AND
an important point: a large potato processor has come to this territory: a PepsiCo plant in the Novosibirsk region is preparing to open.
- That is, the launch of processing immediately increases interest in irrigation?
- The processing enterprise needs constant supplies of raw materials, any interruptions are tantamount to big losses, crop failure
will be a disaster: the plant cannot afford downtime, and the main insurance against them is irrigation.
In addition, the potato chips must meet strict quality requirements. In other words, all farms that want to cooperate with the enterprise will grow irrigated potatoes.
In the next year or two, a processing boom is expected in Russia: a number of large enterprises increase production plus new ones appear. And we expect that there will be more irrigation projects in all affected regions.
- In addition to potatoes and vegetables, there are a number of other crops that are now being irrigated. It is believed, for example, that forage crops give good results. Do you agree with this opinion?
- Cultivation of forage crops is a very promising direction for agricultural producers. Dry food is a popular product in foreign markets. Irrigation allows you to get products in greater quantity and better quality, so its importance can hardly be overestimated. And in a number of regions, the introduction of irrigation is the only way to guarantee the required crop volumes.
In early autumn, I was in the Voronezh region, at a plant that produces artificially dehydrated alfalfa. The company successfully exports its products to other countries. But this year the plant suffers from an acute shortage of raw materials: due to the drought, it was possible to make only two cuttings instead of the necessary five, and the second was what is called "with tears". If the fields were irrigated, the company would never have faced such problems.
Not so long ago, cereals were also included in the category of irrigated crops in Russia. True, for many farms this happened practically
by chance: no one bought irrigation equipment specifically for wheat, they began to water it "because of the crop rotation." And suddenly it turned out that when grown on irrigation, the grain yield is 100 c / ha under the conditions of the Tula region, and without irrigation it was 30-40 c / ha. If you remember how the prices for cereals have risen over the past two or three years, the difference is huge.
And thanks to irrigation, the vegetative mass of cereals becomes larger, the straw remains in the ground, the structure of the soil improves, and this also has a positive effect on the yield - including of potatoes and vegetables.
- Experienced farmers will definitely say that watering does not always bring only advantages.
- The introduction of irrigation is not just a purchase of equipment. When developing a project, literally everything must be taken into account: the composition of soils on
fields, a set of crops in a crop rotation, the purpose of products, and this is a task for a team of specialists. Two farms can be side by side,
but they will need different solutions. Understanding this helps to avoid costly mistakes.
- Irrigation equipment has significantly increased in price over the past year. Where do you see the reason?
- Sprinklers are metal-intensive steel structures, and steel has risen in price on the world market very much, and so far the upward trend continues.
The organization of watering requires the use of a large number of pipes. The pipes are made of polyethylene, and the cost of polyethylene depends on oil prices (what is happening in this market, everyone also sees well: the world economy is recovering, production growth does not keep pace with the growth in demand).
- Many farmers in central Russia, even before this rise in price, believed that for farms with an area of 100 hectares, the introduction of irrigation is an unjustifiably expensive pleasure.
- They are wrong. Perhaps they simply do not realize that they can get twice as much potatoes from the same 100 hectares, using the same set of equipment and a slightly larger volume of mineral fertilizers and plant protection products. And the quality of the crop will be three to four times better.
In my opinion, if a farm is engaged in the cultivation of ware potatoes on an area of 50 hectares, in any region of the country, it must have irrigation equipment. Now, if we are talking about seed potatoes, other options are possible.
And let's not forget that the state allocates subsidies for the development of irrigation, in different regions the amount of compensation is different, but in any case, this is a significant support.