Vegetable Production: State of the Industry and Development Prospects

The scientific article conducted a theoretical study on the issues of ensuring the efficiency of vegetable production, the development of the vegetable growing industry, and providing the population with vegetable growing products. The dynamics of sown areas over the past 25 years is presented. It was revealed that the largest share in the structure of sown areas is occupied by potato plantings, while in dynamics over 25 years, plantings have decreased by almost half. The smallest share in the structure of sown areas is occupied by the cultivation of industrial crops. Their share in the structure of sown areas has almost doubled over the past 25 years. From 10 to 20 percent of the sown area is used for planting vegetables; in the period under study, their area almost doubled. An analysis of the dynamics of the yield of open-ground vegetables showed that over the past 25 years it has almost doubled (from 143 c/ha to 242 c/ha). It is shown that the gross harvest of open-ground vegetables has been trending upward over the past 25 years, with an increase of about 15 percent. It was revealed that in the period from 2007 to 2019, there was an increase in vegetable production per capita by 21.5 percent. Consumption of vegetables exceeds its production within the country; during the study period it increased by 17.4 percent. It was noted that vegetable import indicators are ahead of export indicators. In 2019, vegetable exports were almost 15 times higher than in 1996.