The leaders of the greenhouse industry of the Russian Federation with the support of Association of The Greenhouses of Russia, represented by Mr. Aleksey Sitnikov, the president and Ms. Natalia Rogova, the general director, have addressed the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Dmitry Patrushev with the letters of appeal. In these letters, the industry representatives state that the greenhouse business is facing a challenging situation due to the currently present macroeconomic and international factors that require immediate reaction from the government. Thus, the preliminary monitoring has shown a harsh drop of greenhouse industry profitability by 50%. The decrease is especially noticeable in cucumber production. The dramatic cut in income leads to issues with fulfilling the social commitments, including paying out salaries, taxes, bank settlements, etc.
In order to stabilize the situation, the leaders of the sphere suggest lowering the insurance rates for small enterprises, prolonging the terms of reporting period and proving interest-free loans.
Additionally, in the letter addressed to Mr. Roman Nekrasov, the Director of the Department of Crop Farming, the leaders of the sphere have requested to consider the possibility of postponing the payments on investment loans, allocated for the construction and modernization of the greenhouses. The letter also suggested compensating 50% of the energy costs for the complexes equipped with supplemental lighting systems and partial compensation of expenses on gas. In the letter, greenhouse growers call for subsidizing the enterprises for the purpose of creating seedling material and acquiring fertilizers, as well as for creating vegetable processing units.
Flower industry has been paid special attention. Flower growers have raised the issue of subsidizing respective enterprises in the same volume as the greenhouse complexes growing vegetables. In addition, the industry leaders have called for limiting the cut flower import for a year or introducing a customs fee.
Source: Rusteplica