Potato producers from the Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions faced losses associated with large-scale deliveries from abroad. Now the regions are completing the sale of last year’s crop, while, according to market participants, contrary to the established practice of selling products in May this year, the deadlines extended by a month and a half due to a surplus of goods.
At the same time, prices in the wholesale market fell by 40-50%, and for individual manufacturers - below cost. The current situation seriously shook the financial situation of a number of medium and small farms that invested in the construction of vegetable stores. Even the intervention of the Rosselkhoznadzor, which found bacteria in Egyptian potatoes, temporarily banning supplies from 8 regions, did not correct the situation. As a result, agricultural producers were forced to ascertain losses, the value of which could increase due to adverse weather conditions this year and a likely decrease in the quality of the new crop.
Large farms of the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions completed the implementation of the 2017 potato crop in June. According to the results of last year, these two regions of the Ural Federal District were included in the top ten entities with the largest volumes of vegetable harvest. According to market participants, the terms for the implementation of agriculture lasted for 1 - 1,5 months. According to farmers, it was traditionally planned to close sales by May 15, but a number of manufacturers managed to do this only by mid-June. Some farms are still selling the leftovers, although they acknowledge that by now the quality of this product is poor. At the same time, farmers focus on serious problems associated with large-scale deliveries of potatoes from abroad.
“We were not greatly affected by this situation because we had planned uniform deliveries in advance. We have contracts with retail chains, large volumes, and we need to sell them somehow. In my opinion, our farmers account for about half of all potato production in the region. Many of them decided that potatoes would be valuable and held back. And when a large number of goods appeared on the market in May, prices fell. The situation also affected large producers in the Tyumen region. On May 10, they had 5-7 thousand tons of potatoes. The problem is that they delayed deliveries in January-February, and this market was occupied by imported potatoes. A new position "Early potatoes" has appeared. If earlier foreign supplies were in May, now they appeared on the market in March, "said the commercial director of the agro-industrial complex Belorechensky» Irina Nadezhdina.
It should be noted that in April 194 thousand tons of potatoes were imported into Russia, of which Egypt accounted for the largest share - 126 thousand tons, and Belarus - 54 thousand tons. However, the Rosselkhoznadzor in mid-March suspended supplies from 8 regions of Egypt in connection with the identification of the causative agent of brown bacterial rot of potatoes, the bacteria Pseudomonas (Ralstonia) solanacearum (Smith) Yabuuchi et al. In early June, when stocks of domestic producers were drawing to a close, the ban was lifted.
Nevertheless, the import of potatoes from foreign countries and the massive release to the market of products of local producers in May provoked a fall in prices. If in 2017 wholesale prices exceeded 20 thousand rubles per ton, then in 2018 they fell more than 2 times. As farmers in the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions note, the cost dropped to 7-10 thousand rubles per ton. Some manufacturers of the Moscow region and Bashkortostan offered their products at 4 thousand rubles at a cost of about 8 thousand.
“The fall in prices in the market brought us to losses. Until now, we have about 60-70 tons. Due to sales and the traditional rise in prices in May, we planned to recoup the costs of building a vegetable store and refrigerators. We invested 100 million rubles and planned to recoup it in 3-4 years. The cost of our potatoes is 12-15 rubles, in June the price for it was at the level of 14 rubles. Now we are dumping products at a low price - the potatoes had to be sold by mid-May, otherwise they begin to sprout, "said the head of the Bitimsky agricultural production complex. Mikhail Maltsev.
Financial difficulties due to a price spike, in his opinion, arose among a wide range of farmers. The urgent problem was in the Tyumen region. Even a major producer of KH Druzhba notes that they managed to sell products only by the end of June. In May, the company remained unsold, according to its representatives, about 1 - 1,5 thousand tons.
“The situation has definitely influenced the processes in the company. Somewhere not enough for technology, somewhere for other purposes. It is also connected with the fact that the region as a whole has very large stocks of potatoes (for the whole of 2017, about 200 thousand tons of potatoes were harvested in the Tyumen region). Producers dumped the price to 9 thousand rubles per ton, the last potato was already sold at 7,5 thousand. This year we mutilated the area under crops on 600 hectares to 1,8 thousand hectares. We do not make preliminary forecasts for the harvest, but given the increase in area, it will not be worse than last year, ”told Pravda Ural Federal District in the Druzhba cultural complex.
Another major producer of the Tyumen region - “KRiMM” - notes that the problem of a sharp drop in potato prices did not hurt him. Currently, according to experts, in the region stocks of potatoes of 2017 were sold and fresh crops were imported from Kazakhstan and the southern regions of Russia, and the average price in the wholesale market reaches 33-35 thousand rubles per ton.
In the Sverdlovsk region, the price of fresh potatoes, according to market participants, is already fixed at 28-32 thousand rubles per ton and is likely to last until August.
At the same time, manufacturers of the Ural Federal District pay attention to adverse weather conditions, because of which the planting of vegetables had to be postponed for 1,5 - 2 weeks. As a result, the preservation of adverse conditions this year may adversely affect the quality of the product and its price.
Source: http://pravdaurfo.ru