Inflation continues to grow in Russia - prices on an annualized basis have increased by more than 8%. The main component of inflation this year was the rise in prices for food products and, first of all, for vegetables. Izvestia writes about this.

In some cases, the growth in this category of goods over the past year has almost doubled.

Vegetables are sharply rising in price due to dependence on imports, and domestic production stagnates, being a "weak link" in the domestic agricultural sector, the newspaper writes.

According to the analytical AB-center, the retail price as of October for cabbage increased by 98%, potatoes - by 78%, cucumbers and tomatoes - by 65%, and carrots - by 41%. Thus, the cost of the "borscht set" has jumped more than one and a half times.

The head of the National Fruit and Vegetable Union Mikhail Glushkov links inflation with imports as well. However, in Russia only 10% of the vegetables grown are imported. Although this year was abnormal - the import of carrots has increased significantly.

Glushkov also explained why Russia cannot grow enough vegetables for the domestic market. According to him, in previous years the state paid little attention to this industry - everything was relatively normal in it. In 2020, there was a crop failure, and in 2021 it was not possible to surpass last year's weak results.

“Several problems were imposed at once,” the expert concluded.

Glushkov considers the main problems to be the rise in the cost of resources for growing carrots and cabbage. Labor constraints also greatly affect the amount of vegetables grown. The ban on the entry of seasonal workers has practically deprived the industry of day laborers.

Due to late spring, the vegetables were planted two weeks later, and September turned out to be very wet and cold for harvesting, as a result of which the work was postponed to October. For this reason, prices jumped in September - the supply on the market was abnormally low.

bbabo.Net