Heavy rains and storms destroyed more than 15 thousand hectares of vegetables, fruits and berries in the most affected regions of Ukraine - Zakarpatya, Donetsk, Lugansk and Odessa regions, according to expert on horticultural markets of the Association "Ukrainian Agribusiness Club" (UCAB) Igor Strelyuk.

"The main regions that grow horticultural products in Ukraine were not affected significantly from the weather. As of June 13^th, overall country losses of fruit and vegetable production are rather low, on average 5-6%. Mostly were affected producers of Zakarpatya, Donetsk, Lugansk and Odessa regions (Map 1). In these regions, were destroyed about 20% of vegetable, fruit and berry production. By estimates of UCAB experts, this is more than 15 thousand hectares (total area under vegetables in these regions is more than 73 thousand hectares)", - explained expert on horticultural markets of the Association “Ukrainian Agribusiness Club” Igor Strelyuk.

According to expert, at present time it is rather hard to estimate financial losses of producers, but taking into account information on investments in horticultural production, expected losses are on level of 270-300 million UAH.

"The largest problem was hail, because nowadays Ukrainian horticultural producers practically are unable to defend their production against such foul weather. Only some companies have anti hail nets. In terms of specific product groups, such as "Borsch set" and other vegetables, the hail may damage only the upper part of the plant, therefore, at least suspending vegetation. As result such products as cabbage definitely lose their trade dress “, - indicated UCAB expert.

Harvesting season for the berries, such as strawberries, raspberries, black and red currants is on but due to weather producers are unable to harvest regularly. This causes price fluctuations on markets, particularly strawberries price ranges from 15 UAH/Kg to 20 UAH/Kg. And due to frequent rains quality of strawberry gets lower, it becomes watery and tasteless. Thirdly, the large quantity of berries overripe and remain on the field because of the weather.

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Tetiana Kotyk