At the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation on December 03, 2021, chaired by the First Deputy Minister D.Kh. Khatuov. a meeting was held on the forecast structure of areas under potatoes and vegetables in open ground in 2022. The event was attended by the Deputy Head of the Federal State Statistics Service K.E. Laikam, heads and representatives of the regional management bodies of the agro-industrial complex, as well as the Chairman of the Union of Potato and Vegetable Market Participants S.N. Lupekhin.
As it was noted, despite the unfavorable weather conditions, this year Russian farmers received a decent harvest of potatoes and vegetable products.
In the report of the director of Deplastenievodstvo R.V. Nekrasov. it was reported that 272,6 million tons of potatoes were dug up from an area of 6,68 thousand hectares in the regions with an average yield of 24,5 tons / hectare, and 5,06 million tons of open field vegetables were harvested. To increase production in 2022, according to the recommendations of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, it is planned to expand the planting of potatoes to 305 thousand hectares, and to the level of the current year. it is planned to increase the planting of vegetables by 24 thousand hectares, which may amount to 200 thousand hectares.
The additional measures of state support being worked out by the ministry aimed at the development of potato and vegetable growing will allow by 2025 in the commodity sector (excluding personal subsidiary farms) to increase potato production by 15% and reach a gross harvest of 7,8 million tons. For vegetables in open ground, you can achieve a yield of about 6,3 million tons.
In his speech, S.N. Lupekhin noted that in order to resolve the current issues of the crop production and development sector in the future, it is necessary to provide additional measures of state support, to take into account and resolve the following issues:
- When increasing the volume of potato production, it is necessary to concentrate efforts primarily on the leading territories: Bryansk, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan regions and a number of other regions that have favorable land and water resources, human potential for this, providing for them increased coefficients of state support measures, and stimulating the commissioning of additional storage capacities;
- Taking into account the proposals of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia to increase the production of potatoes and vegetables in open ground, according to market participants, one of the most promising and effective additional measures could be state support of 100 thousand rubles per hectare for additional and newly put into circulation areas for the production of potatoes and vegetables;
- Difficult weather conditions of the current season affected the volume and quality of planting material for planting in 2022.The required volume of seeds for 2023 should be laid in 2022. Moreover, against the background of commissioning in 2022-2024. new facilities for deep processing of potatoes (chips, fries, potato flakes) in the Tula, Lipetsk, Novosibirsk regions and a number of other regions of Russia, the need for planting material of specialized varieties (mainly foreign selection) will increase. We believe that in such a situation it is necessary to envisage a forced increase in the import of seeds of high reproduction from the EU countries in the current season up to 40 thousand tons;
- Of the total annual demand for potato seeds for the commercial sector in the amount of about 800 thousand tons, the Russian Agricultural Center accepted applications, examined and certified 2021 thousand tons in 174. It is impossible to assess the quality and level of reproductions of other lots of sold and planted seeds. Accordingly, all this negatively affects the productivity of plantings, contributes to the spread of pathogens and quarantine objects. It seems expedient to strengthen the functions of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Rosselkhoztsentr" aimed at the maximum (ideally 100%) coverage of inspection and certification of seed lots in the commercial sector, as well as to envisage measures to stimulate agricultural producers to "transparency" of the used planting and seed material;
- Increasing the production of vegetables "borsch set" can be provided with less costly efforts and in a shorter time, providing measures for the construction of modern, high-tech vegetable stores that allow you to preserve products from harvest to harvest. Another important factor is the guaranteed sale of the products grown;
- One of the key problems for potato and vegetable growers is the sale of their products. Market participants are extremely interested in establishing partnerships on a medium and long term basis with retail chains, which currently occupy about 60% of the retail market. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, retail chains are inactive in discussing long-term contracts. Moreover, in the context of a shortage of large potatoes in the current season, retail chains slow down the sale of small-caliber products.
- Taking into account the tasks of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation set for the market participants to increase the area and volume of production of potatoes and vegetables of the borsch set in 2022 and subsequent years, we ask the Ministry of Agriculture to speed up the decision-making on the draft program of support of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. Farmers, on the eve of the new season, until which there are 3-4 months left, it is necessary to indicate a clear understanding of the rules and conditions of state support for the production of potatoes and vegetables for the seasons 2022-2023. To increase the area and expand the material and technical base, agricultural producers today must form funds for seeds, plant protection products, mineral fertilizers, labor resources, and also negotiate sales channels.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, “following the meeting, the regions were instructed to take special control over providing farmers with material and technical resources and meeting the target for the production of potatoes and vegetables in 2022. In addition, the industry unions will prepare a forecast for increasing the processing and storage capacity of products in the context of each constituent entity, taking into account new investment projects in this area " https://mcx.gov.ru/press-service/news/v-minselkhoze-obsudili-mery-po-uvelicheniyu-proizvodstva-kartofelya-i-ovoshchey-75128/