IA FruitNews.ru publishes an analysis of the situation in the Russian vegetable market in the season 2018/2019.
For a more accurate assessment of the situation with the harvest of local products and competition with imports within one supply season, we consider the market picture for 12 months from July 1 to June 30 of the next year. The analysis of local production in this review is based on indicators of agricultural organizations, individual entrepreneurs, and peasant farms.
Against the background of a general increase in the production of local products, imports of fresh vegetables to Russia in the 2018/2019 season. decreased by 9%, or about 220 thousand tons compared to the previous year. Basically, the decline in imports was due to a decrease in the supply of potatoes. At the same time, the Russian production of open ground vegetables decreased by 2% - by 96 thousand tons, and greenhouse vegetables, on the contrary, increased by 14% - by 161 thousand tons.
Potato
Potato production in Russia in the season 2018/2019. increased by 6% or 414 thousand tons. The crop reached 7,158 million tons. Russian potato producers did not succeed in breaking the 2015 record, but the general trend towards production growth continues.
Table 3. Potato production in Russia 1990 - 2018 * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Imports, as already noted, decreased by 45% from 569 thousand tons in the 2017/2018 season. up to 316 thousand tons in 2018/2019
Deliveries from Egypt decreased almost 3 times - from 359 thousand tons to 127 thousand tons. Deliveries from other major suppliers - Azerbaijan, China, Belarus, Israel, Morocco and others - also went down. At the same time, Pakistan has doubled its presence in the Russian market - from 2 thousand tons to 18 thousand tons.
Cabbage
The cabbage crop in 2018 decreased by 16% compared to the previous year and amounted to 873 thousand tons. The share of farms in the total harvest is growing. So in 2018, farmers have already grown more than half of the total crop volume - 445 thousand tons. It should be noted that the volume of cabbage production on farms in the Rosstat data was recently adjusted for the period from 2007 during the recalculation of time series of individual indicators based on the results of the All-Russian Agricultural Census of 2016. A similar situation has developed for a number of other vegetables.
Table 5. Cabbage production in Russia 1990-2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
In response to a decline in production, imports of cabbage in the season 2018/2019. increased from 90 thousand tons to 113 thousand tons. Among the largest suppliers, Iran moved from 5th to 3rd place, regaining its place in the top three and increasing deliveries of cabbage from 6 thousand tons (in 2017/2018) to 15 thousand tons. China and Uzbekistan have maintained a leading position in the Russian cabbage import market. Belarus and Kazakhstan, on the contrary, significantly reduced their supply volumes, which may be due to a reduction in re-export or the complete departure of volumes of cabbage traditionally supplied to Russia from Polish producers to the shadow zone of the market.
Carrots
After a sharp increase in the previous four years, carrot production in 2018 decreased by 4%, the crop amounted to 810 thousand tons.
Table 6. Carrot production in Russia 1990 - 2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Import of carrots in 2018/2019 showed a slight increase - and from the level of 180 thousand tons a year earlier, increased to 187 thousand tons. The leaders are Israel, Belarus, China.
Beetroot
The beet market in 2018 saw an increase in local production - by 11% to 427 thousand tons. These are record figures for the last 20 years. A year earlier, 384 thousand tons were collected, and in 2016 - 404 thousand tons. These were the highest yield levels since the early 90s. In fact, production volumes in this category exceeded the 1991 level.
Table 8. Beet production in Russia 1990-2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Beet imports to Russia are very small. In the 2018/2019 season, it remained almost at the level of the previous year - 25 thousand tons. China remains the leading supplier, providing over 80% of all beet imports for the Russian market. At the same time, supplies from China increased sharply, while those from other leading countries in terms of supplies - Moldova, Israel, Belarus, Turkey - significantly decreased.
Bow
The onion crop decreased by 11%, amounting to 2018 million tons in 1,034. At the same time, most of the crop - 661 thousand tons - was grown by farmers.
Table 10. Onion production in Russia 1990-2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
In response to a reduction in the crop, onion imports to Russia in 2018/2019 increased by 18% compared to the previous year and exceeded 200 thousand tons. Egypt took first place among onion exporters to Russia, increasing supplies by more than 60%. It is followed by China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands and other countries.
Protected Ground Vegetables
According to Rosstat, the harvest of greenhouse vegetables in 2018 amounted to 1,135 million tons. Compared to last year, when the harvest reached 974 thousand tons, the increase was 17%. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, about 60% of the yield of greenhouse products falls on cucumbers, about 38,5% on tomatoes, and about 1,5% on green crops and other vegetables (eggplants, bell peppers, etc.) harvest in this category is already a stable trend since 2011, but in the future the trend may change due to the reduction of subsidy programs for the construction of greenhouse complexes and the disappearance of the possibility of connecting greenhouse complexes to cheap electricity. At the same time, after the intensification of competition among cucumber producers, the growth in the production of greenhouse products in the past two years is mainly due to tomatoes and other crops. In addition to traditional projects of growing cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs, greenhouse complexes are experimenting with growing eggplants, peppers and even berries.
Table 12. Production of greenhouse vegetables in Russia 1990-2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Open ground tomatoes
The harvest of tomatoes in open ground in 2018 reached 893 thousand tons (+ 11% to the harvest of 2017), continuing the four-year growth trend. The most dramatic jump in the growth of seasonal tomato production took place in 2017, when several large full-cycle enterprises from cultivation to tomato paste production were put into operation at once, and the yield of this type of product in the country grew one and a half times.
Table 14. Production of open ground tomatoes in Russia 1990 - 2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Open field cucumbers
In 2018, 124 thousand tons of open field cucumbers were harvested, of which 73 thousand tons were grown by farmers. Since 2017, the growth was 9%, but it was not possible to exceed the record levels of 2014, when 165 thousand tons were collected.
Table 15. Production of open ground cucumbers in Russia 1990 - 2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Import of tomatoes and cucumbers
Taking into account the growth in production of both greenhouse and seasonal tomatoes and cucumbers, imports of these vegetables are decreasing. In the season 2018/2019. the volume of import supplies of tomatoes to Russia decreased by 6% to 541 thousand tons. The most significant drop in supplies from China - from 100 thousand tons to 67 thousand tons, Morocco - from 98 thousand tons to 63,5 thousand tons and Belarus (i.e. from European suppliers) - from 63,3 thousand tons to 49,8 thousand tons. These countries occupy the third, fourth and fifth positions in the ranking of the largest importers of tomatoes to the Russian market, respectively. The leaders of the rating - the suppliers of Azerbaijani tomatoes - managed to keep the volume of shipments practically at the level of 2017/2018. The lifting of restrictions on supplies from Turkey allowed the exporter of this country to increase exports to Russia more than threefold, as a result of which Turkish exporters took the second place.
Imports of cucumbers decreased by 18% from 137 thousand to 116 thousand tons. Deliveries were reduced by almost all major suppliers, including leaders such as Iran, China, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkey. At the same time, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Armenia increased their presence on the Russian market, taking the sixth, seventh and eighth lines in the list of major suppliers.
Other vegetables (bell peppers, eggplant, salads, greens)
According to the Federal State Statistics Service, the total increase in the yield of other vegetables in 2018 amounted to 19% compared to the previous year. The crop reached 567 thousand tons, of which 305 thousand tons accounted for by peasant farms. This category is actively developing, many new projects appear in it. At the same time, for pepper and eggplant, the need to grow seedlings in greenhouses is a constraining factor, since it requires significant investments, which is often not available for small farms.
Table 17. Production of other vegetables in Russia 1990 - 2018 (tons) * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
As a result, a consistently large share of imported products remains in this category. For example, the import of sweet pepper in the season 2018/2019. amounted to 152 thousand tons, decreasing by 8 thousand tons.
With the creation of new logistics routes and the stabilization of the market, the supply of green salads is growing for the second year in a row and in the season 2018/2019. import of this type of product amounted to 41 thousand tons. Iran remains the leader among suppliers, a year earlier pushing Belarus to the second line, through which since 2014, products grown in Spain, Italy and other European countries have also entered the Russian market. Followed by Egypt, China, Uzbekistan, Tunisia and Morocco.
Harvests of squash and pumpkin in 2018 showed multidirectional dynamics. Harvest of zucchini increased by 15% to 105 thousand tons, but is still far from the record level of 2015, when Russian farms and farmers harvested 178 thousand tons of such vegetables. Pumpkin production, which reached a record of 198 thousand tons in the same 2015, has since been continuously reduced. In 2018, the pumpkin crop in Russia decreased by 11% to 106 thousand tons.
Table 21. Zucchini production in Russia 1990 - 2018 * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)
Table 22. Pumpkin production in Russia 1990 - 2018 * source: Federal State Statistics Service (2018)