In 2024, the harvest of vegetables and fruits is expected to increase by about 15-20%, Vakhtang Bezhitashvili, president of the Association of Vegetable and Fruit Exporters, states.
According to him, today Russia is the main market for exports and accounts for 90% of the total exports.
“Due to climatic conditions, last year we had a poor harvest that affected the production volumes. There were rains, then drought, landslides. Apart from quantity, all this affected the quality of our products and limited export opportunities. Expectations for this year are positive amid a good weather that most likely will increase production as well as the purchase prices for farmers’ products,” President of the Association notes.
In Vakhtang Bezhitashvili’s words, Russia and the former USSR states remain the priority as the conditions for entering the EU market are very specific and no one in Europe works with small quantities.
“The only problem on the Russian and post-Soviet markets are quality and prices, everything else is unimportant. Our phytosanitary services issue certificates for export to the EU without any problem, we have difficulties with volumes - our farmers do not grow products in quantities sufficient to enter the European market,” Vakhtang Bezhitashvili points out.
He believes that to enter the EU market, farms and producers are to be consolidated that will allow to reach the volumes acceptable to the EU market.
