The production cost of spring vegetables has doubled! Inflation, high fuel and electricity prices and rising employee salaries affect every industry. Including farms where early vegetables are grown. We are checking the situation in the Piotrków district in Łódź.
The final price of spring vegetables depends on the margin imposed by the sellers, but we have no good news. The cost of vegetable production doubled compared to the previous year. A year ago, the production of a head of lettuce cost PLN 1 – counting only the cost of heating.
I omit the cost of fertilizer seedlings, labor – mentions in an interview with our reporter Zbigniew Braun, the owner of a gardening and agricultural farm in the Grabica commune in the Piotrków district. This is only the cost of heating, with the price of fine coal in the range of PLN 1,200 per ton, it comes out to PLN 2 on one lettuce, which means we have a double increase. In addition, there is practically twice the cost of electricity, and labor to a large extent. We’ll see how it goes, how the market reacts. But production costs have practically gone up 100 percent – he points out.
Twice the cost does not mean that the vegetable we buy in the store will be twice as expensive as last year. It depends on the brokerage margin.
Nutrients, water, light, heat the farmer tells us. The rate of growth depends on the length of the day, temperature and sun. This year’s spring vegetables will be available in three weeks.
The weather is of fundamental importance, because when there is no sun, plants grow much slower.
In summer, a similar variety grows 4 weeks. Now – 60 days – says Mr. Zbigniew. The farmer would like to sell it for PLN 4.
What is the biggest concern of the Polish manufacturer? Weather – no doubt says the farmer. Storms, hail. You can recalculate, calculate how everything is fine. And when the element comes, you can count the losses he adds.
March is cooler than a year ago, so vegetables need heating with more expensive fuel and lighting with more expensive electricity. That is why farmers, in order to save money, buy seedlings from producers.
Energy and heating costs have increased so much this year that we have a lot of new customers – Marcin Krasoń from the Rozsad Krasoń Producers Group tells our reporter. They prefer to order seedlings from a reliable source than to look for fuel, fine coal on their own, so we have more spring vegetables at the moment than last year.
The process of plant growth from planting the seed to sale lasts about 45 days in the winter season. For lettuce – about a month.
Everything starts with us, then the producer plants, harvests and delivers to the recipient – says Marcin Krasoń and emphasizes that it is from spring vegetables that we will eat Polish lettuce at the earliest.
The cost of seedling production is also increasing. Starting with seeds that are getting more expensive, peat substrate that is getting more expensive, energy costs Krason mentions. The RMF FM interlocutor adds that he heats the seedlings with gas, which has become more expensive, and to compensate for the lack of sun, he illuminates them with artificial light, and electricity has also become more expensive.
