Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Drip irrigation is installed on 95ha of land in Zakarpattya
Zakarpattya AMP office jointly with Office Center of Micro Irrigation and Water Supply, Zakarpattya Institute of Hydrotechnics and Melioration, have carried out tentative estimation of oblast lands acreage where drip irrigation systems are used.
According to calculations, in Zakarpattya oblast crops are produced on 95 hectares under drip irrigation, besides, drip irrigation systems are installed on another 40 hectares, but because of various reasons they are either not used, or waiting to be put in operation.
From 80 hectares of vegetables produced on drip irrigation ststems more than 70 hectares are owned by private farms, the average acreage of lands under drip irrigation is 0.1-0.15 hectares. We should note that it is very hard to calculate lands under drip irrigation in private farms, so the mentioned data can differ from the real one on 10-20%.
During past year acreage of lands under drip irrigation increased approximately on 20-30%. However we can not consider this situation to be satisfactory. Only declared needs of Zakarpattya canneries are 5-6,000 tons of cucumber per year. Meanwhile quality cucumber for canning purposes can be produced only using drip irrigation; to satisfy needs of canneries in cucumber, the average yield lands under drip irrigation should be about 100 hectares.
According to AMP specialists' assessment, in 2004 the lands under drip irrigation in Ukraine were about 10-16,000 hectares, nearly 90% of which are concentrated in 5 oblasts. As leaders we can name Odesa and Kherson oblasts where drip irrigation systems are installed on 5-6,000 hectares in each. In some regions local authorities support these activities. For example, state administration of Odesa oblast plans to assign 1 mln. UAH for drip irrigation system installation in 2004, This sum is approximately enough to cover all expenses for drip irrigation systems installation on acreage of 200 hectares (twice more lands acreage than there are now in Zakarpattya oblast).
Zakarpattya part in total drip irrigation acreage is 0.6-0.7%.