Ukraine has grown to third place in the world at the moment of growth of exports of blueberries, inferior only to Peru and Portugal.
A spokeswoman for Dutch Rabobank Cindy van Rijswick said this, EastFruit reports.
Rabobank estimates the growth rate of blueberry exports from Ukraine at 60% per annum, but notes that overall exports remain small, much lower than world leaders, which include Chile, Peru and Spain.
According to the economist of the investment department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Andrey Yarmak, after 5 years Ukraine will be able to export about 20 thousand t. Blueberries, mainly fresh.
“According to this indicator Ukraine is equal to Poland, which now occupies the second place in Europe after Spain for export blueberries. However, in order to achieve such an indicator, berry producers need to be more actively involved in the process of improving the quality of products, because in Ukraine, only five farmers have the Global G.A.P certificate, which is only a minimum condition for access to the EU market. However, even with the compliance of these basic conditions of the producers there is a lot of problems, “- said the expert.
Andrey Yarmak also noted the lack of efforts to diversify exports.
“The emphasis on exports to the EU is a good decision, since the EU is near us. Moreover, the distance from Lutsk to Berlin is less than 1 thousand Km, while the distance from the key production regions in Spain to Berlin is about 3,000. Km, that is, three times more. However, one must understand that there are markets where in our production season we can get a higher price for blueberries, and such markets include the Middle East and Southeast Asia. At the same time, even in Europe, unfortunately, Ukraine does not make enough efforts to promote exports, “- says the expert.
Announces: agroportal
