Last year, the harvest in winter greenhouses broke the record of 2020 with over 1.4 million tons of vegetables produced, including at least 830 thousand tons of cucumbers and 590 thousand tons of tomatoes.
By 2025, vegetable production in year-round greenhouses is expected to reach at least 1.6 million tonnes.
The increase in volumes is primarily driven by the commissioning of new complexes and modernisation of existing plants. In 2021, their total area increased by 6%, from 3 to 3.2 thousand hectares.
At the same time, the yield of vegetable crops is growing annually due to the use of high-yielding varieties and modern cultivation technologies. In the most modern greenhouses of the fifth generation, it reaches approximately 100 kg/1 sq m for tomatoes and over 160 kg/1 sq m for cucumbers.
The leading regions in this segment are the Lipetsk, Moscow, Kaluga, Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Chelyabinsk Regions, the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, the Republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, and the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. They account for more than 60% of total production in the country.
The intensive development of greenhouse vegetable farming is facilitated by a set of state support measures, primarily preferential investment lending. Besides, since 2021 regions got the opportunity to provide additional support for greenhouse enterprises as part of the priority areas for the agricultural sector development.
A new mechanism will be introduced to compensate for part of the costs of building greenhouse enterprises in the Far East regions starting in 2022.
According to Mikhail Glushkov, director of the National Union of Fruit and Vegetable Producers, last year has led to another record in the industry. Tomato production is increasing rapidly, which is reflected in a 10-15% decrease in its imports. The union predicts that next year greenhouse vegetable production will continue to grow. In the future, as the domestic market becomes saturated, exports will also develop. ■