REUTERS
Ukrainian agrarians exported 1,880 tonnes of cherries and sweet cherries in 2016, which was twice the shipments in 2015, according to the press service of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club.
If in 2013 over 4,000 tonnes of Ukrainian cherries, which was 99% of all stone fruits exports, was shipped onto the Russian market, the main consumer of Ukrainian cherries in 2016 was Belarus.
In 2016, Ukraine produced 509,800 tonnes of stone fruits, which was 7% down from 2015. In particular, farmers reduced cherries output by 18.9%, to 156,400 tonnes, while sweet cherries production fell by 17.4%, to 63,300 tonnes.
Read alsoUkrainian agricultural boom: Why it matters to Irish farmers – mediaHouseholds still account for 95% of sweet cherries production and 97% of cherries production in Ukraine, so there is a great potential for "commercialization of the industry," the press service said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, exports of Ukrainian agrarian products rose by 4.5% in 2016 from 2015, to $15.5 billion (42.5% of total Ukrainian exports), according to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry. Grain crops, vegetable oil, oilseeds, soybeans, sugar and meat traditionally were export-oriented staples. Key markets were Asian countries (45.9% of exports, worth $7 billion), the European Union (27.5% of exports, $4.2 billion), Africa (15.7% of exports, $2.4 billion), the CIS countries (7.7% of exports, $1.2 billion), and the United States (0.9% of exports, $45 million).