On March 25, the Potato System magazine held its second webinar for professionals in the potato market. This time the meeting was devoted to the problems of organizing the storage of potatoes and vegetables.
Unfortunately, due to technical problems on YouTube, the webinar could not be viewed in real time, but now it is available in recordings.
Vadim Kuvshinov, Director of LLC took part in the video discussion "Agrosave" (Agrotrade Group); Konstantin Kovilyaev, IFKR partner; Yuri Patsyuk, Director of the company «Turgor AM», Republic of Belarus.
The experts were asked questions by Viktor Kovalev, Development Director of Agrotrade Group of Companies.
Error handling
The conversation began with a discussion of typical mistakes that agricultural producers make when organizing storage.
Experts almost unanimously said that storage is one of the most important stages of work at which the economy of vegetable production is finally formed.
And success at this stage is achieved by those enterprises that clearly understand what exactly they need to preserve (seed, table or potato chips; premium quality products or the economy segment), for how long and how the logistics will be organized.
Amid global warming
During the conversation, Vadim Kuvshinov raised the topic of storage organization in conditions of global warming. He noted that many farms located in the southern regions of Russia are suffering losses, since the climate systems installed in their stores do not cope with maintaining the desired temperature in conditions of abnormally warm winters. According to the director of LLC Agroseyv, in the near future an urgent need for these enterprises will be the purchase of refrigeration equipment.
At the same time, Yuri Patsyuk drew attention to the fact that the use of refrigeration units is expensive for agricultural producers, so many people use refrigerators to store cabbage, carrots, beets only until January, and then turn it off, because otherwise the cost of production by March becomes such that the meaning of storage is lost. The director of Turgor AM emphasized that new solutions from equipment manufacturers and state support are needed in this area.
“We need to take everything that is the latest in the world, the best in the field of electronics, ventilation, electrical engineering, and get a quality product for the farmer, so that he can store his products all year round, but at the same time his labor brought him profit. Equipment for a farmer in the 21st century should be no worse than for oil companies, because producing vegetables is also very hard work. " - Yuriy Patsyuk explained his position.
Arched or modular?
During the webinar, experts also touched on the acute issue of choosing the type of storage. We started by discussing the shortcomings of economical and therefore popular arched structures.
The main problem of beskarkasnikov, according to Konstantin Kovylyaev, is the impossibility of maintaining the quality of the product in conditions where the potatoes are stored in large bulk (up to 4 thousand tons) in bulk in one chamber, while the product is shipped from the storage in small batches.
Konstantin Kovylyaev was supported by both interlocutors. Vadim Kuvshinov noted that the installation of an arochnik with two small chambers (up to 1,5 thousand tons) could be a solution to the problem, while additional partitions inside the storehouse will contribute to greater structural stability. Yuri Patsyuk spoke in favor of high-quality frame storage "of the correct configuration, allowing you to place inside several cameras for various purposes, with and without cold."
Preparing for the storage season
At the end of the meeting, the interlocutors discussed the topic of preparing storage facilities for the next season. Yuri Patsyuk recalled the importance of carrying out a full range of measures for cleaning the premises after the storage season in advance. “If you disinfect the storage a week before laying a new crop, the losses will be large, at least 15%,” he stressed.
Also, the experts were unanimous on the issue of the need to verify the operability of equipment in the warehouse. Everyone considered the optimal period for this to be spring, and this point of view ideally corresponded to the general theme of the webinar.
In general, the exchange of views lasted more than an hour, but the allotted time was not enough to cover in detail all the problems of organizing storage, so it was decided to conduct another webinar on this topic.
The date and time of the new meeting will be announced additionally. Questions to experts can still be sent by e-mail: maksaevaov@agrotradesystem.ru or leave in a chat on the telegram channel of the Potato System magazine https://t.me/potatosystem