The administration of the Tomsk Region has tentatively approved the provision of more than 3,000 hectares of agricultural land under the first phase of a business project to create industrial plantations of wild berries. The design of pilot plantations will begin in 2019.
The project Industrial Cultivation of Forest Berries on the Territory
of Tomsk Region (Yagoda) has been developed by students and teachers of
the TSU Institute of Economics and Management. It involves creating the
first large-scale industrial business in the Russian Federation for
industrial production of cloudberries, cranberries, blueberries,
raspberries, honeysuckle, and other wild berries.
Plots suitable for the project are located within the boundaries of
the Tomsk Region. Plantations will be serviced by robotic complexes. The
project is approximately five billion rubles and will create up to
2,000 jobs. The implementation period of the first stage is 10 years.
– A constructive meeting in the administration was held to determine
the first hectares reserved for the Yagoda project. Also, the
administration pre-approved plots with a total area of 3,211 hectares
and defined specific dates and stages of implementation. Designing
experimental plantations will begin in 2019, and in 2020 we will start
creating nursery lines and the mother plantation, - said Alexander
Belyaev, the project initiator.
The plots for plantations were selected by specialists. They are more
than 18,000 hectares of agricultural land that are abandoned areas
overgrown with vegetation, overgrown arable land, forested land, and
land requiring land reclamation and cultural and technical measures. It
is also forest land that is unpromising for traditional forestry.
- It turns out that nature itself has created all the conditions for
us to grow berries, but we use this opportunity to a minimum,- says
Dmitry Khloptsov, head of the Department of Economics at the IEM.
The planting of seedlings will begin after the arrangement of the
land. They will be picked up under the supervision of specialists from
specialized research institutes. Special combines will help plant them
and then reap a harvest.
- The experience of other countries says that modern robotic combines
do an excellent job with these tasks. Hand picking is the relic of the
past. But there is no sense in the combine if we have only 1,000
hectares. Therefore, we are planning a project on a large area, - says
Dmitry Khloptsov.
Dried (sublimated) and frozen Tomsk wild berries can become a branded product of the region.