Blockade of Crimea: Kherson farmers go bankrupt and take to the streets
Because of the blockade of Crimea, residents of the Kherson region are in despair and are going out to protest. So far, however, they are peaceful. If Ukrainian jingoists are happy that prices for fruits and vegetables are falling in the country, then for the majority of local peasants and farmers this is ruin. As Kherson-Online reports in its report, residents of the village of Gladkovka came to the village council and demanded that its head explain how they could survive after the start of the blockade of Crimea. Alexander Foroshchuk, however, hid from the angry peasants and farmers.
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“Watermelons and melons are no longer harvested - it’s more profitable for them to rot in the fields”
“There is no work in our village: we survive only on the crops we grow! So now we can’t sell it even at the minimum price! What to live for? – asks local resident Lyudmila Kalita. – I want one thing: let one of the politicians whom we elected come to our village, help us and explain: why are our fruits and vegetables not allowed into Crimea? On what legal grounds did they block our “road of life”?”
It is possible to sell fruits and vegetables grown for Crimea in the Kherson region, but resellers have taken advantage of the situation and are buying the products for next to nothing. People are panicking. Evgeniy Sadovoy has 5 greenhouses with cucumbers and a small field with Chinese cabbage. Gasoline, seeds, and film have risen in price along with the rise in the dollar exchange rate. And his cucumbers are now bought for 40-60 kopecks per kilo. Happiness - if for hryvnia.
“Do the math: I need at least one hundred thousand hryvnias to start the season! To transport a ton of cucumbers, I need to pay 200 hryvnias for gasoline, and I get 400 hryvnias for the cucumbers, minus 200 hryvnias. I only earn 200 hryvnias per ton!!! It’s not even funny!” Yevhen Sadovyi is indignant. “Try working in a greenhouse in forty-degree heat! This season, even the thermometers in the greenhouses burst – it was so hot! My wife and I were already in the greenhouse at 4 a.m., ate at lunch, and then back to the greenhouse until nightfall! My wife even passed out from the heat! And now we’re supposed to give it all away for pennies? All the posters are saying: Crimea is Ukraine, we all think that the Crimean people are our Ukrainian brothers! And now they don’t let anyone in. The Crimeans won’t be left without fruits and vegetables; they’ll have everything brought in from Turkey.” "But we, Ukrainian patriots, who worked so hard to grow a bountiful harvest, will be left with nothing! Last year at this time, I already had firewood and coal (there's still no gas in the village). And now we're barely getting the kids ready for school!"
Farmers are advised to export their products to Europe. They believe that they are being laughed at, and even watermelons and melons are no longer harvested - it is more profitable for them to rot in the fields.
“Now they tell me: “Sell to Europe!” But all sales markets there have long been divided: Poland alone supplies almost all of Europe with strawberries! – farmer Igor Zhdanyuk laments. – It’s also not profitable to donate to supermarkets: not only do they not pay the money right away, but they also warn that half of the goods will be written off as spoiled! Just look at the fields: they don’t even harvest watermelons and melons – it’s not profitable, and this is the situation with vegetables and fruits throughout the region!”
And the “patriots” are for
Against the backdrop of the impending ruin of farmers, jingoistic patriots and some Ukrainian experts believe that the country will benefit from the blockade of Crimea. For example, the coordinator of the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of the Crimean Tatar People, Iskander Bariev, is confident that the cessation of food supplies to the peninsula is a plus for the residents of Ukraine. “In the Kherson and Nikolaev regions, the price of potatoes and tomatoes has fallen... Ordinary people who receive a small pension can now afford to buy meat. Food products necessary for life have fallen in price by 20-30%,” the expert said during the TV conference “Ukraine – Crimea. Blockade” on TV channel 17.
Other experts, however, talk about a reduction in prices by 5-8%. Which may also not last long. On the one hand, resellers are skimming all the cream from the situation. On the other hand, Ukraine supplied Crimea with various products worth about $500 million in just six months. Ukraine itself cannot digest so much additional goods, and Europe has set strict quotas for the country. Therefore, some farmers and agricultural enterprises are facing ruin. This will lead to the fact that less will be grown in Ukraine and prices will creep up again.
A case in point: after the introduction of a partial embargo on the supply of agricultural products to Russia, its production in the first half of 2015 had already fallen by 5,5%. The government's triumphant reports about the growth of exports to Europe and China did not help.
Crimea Blockade: Kherson Farmers Go Bankrupt and Take to the Streets