State and prospects of development of vegetable growing in the countries of the Eurasian economic Union

The objectives of founding the Eurasian economic Union (EAEU) was the creation of conditions for stable development of the economies of the member States of the Union to improve the living standards of their populations, the desire to create a common market of goods, services, capital and labor resources, comprehensive modernization, cooperation and competitiveness of national economies of member States of the Union in the global economy. The purpose of the study is to analyze the state of vegetable production and the availability of vegetables for the population of the member States of the Eurasian economic Union in the Republics of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation. According to the results of the analysis, it was found that in the period 2013–2017, the acreage of vegetable crops in the EAEU increased by 7.7% and exceeded 1 million hectares. In 2018, the gross harvest of vegetables increased by 13% to 24.1 million tons. at the same time, more than 62% of vegetables are produced in households and 22% in farms, which indicates the small-scale nature of production and low marketability of products in the EAEU. The leader in the production of vegetables per capita is Armenia (324 kg/person), the lowest value in Russia is 111 kg/person, the average for the EEU is 131 kg/person. The yield of vegetable crops increased in all member States of the Union, with the exception of Armenia, where this figure is the maximum within the Union – 286 kg/ha. The volume of imports of fresh vegetables from third countries in the period 2014–2017 decreased by 16.8% in physical terms and by 33.4% to $ 1.8 billion in monetary terms, due to the introduction of the food embargo and a decrease in the volume of imports to Russia almost twice. Mutual trade (by export) in fresh vegetables increased by 36.4% to $ 241 million. About 77% of the volume of mutual trade comes from Belarus, while more than 90% of the volume of mutual trade in vegetables is directed to the Russian market. One of the measures to support and develop the vegetable industry can be: reducing the share of intermediaries in the consumer price of vegetables, construction of greenhouse complexes for the production of domestic vegetables in the off-season period and vegetable stores, etc.

Key words: vegetables, Eurasian economic Union, production, export, import, trade