15 thousand cucumbers planted in early March have sprouted in the greenhouse of Jānis Lucāns, head of the farm “Bušas”, and they will soon begin blooming. The landlord estimated that a bountiful harvest is expected this year.
“They are traded on the market, distributed through trading chains. One part goes to export as well. More to Estonia,” Lucāns said.
He's been farming cucumbers for 30 years and there are different challenges every year - insects, fungi, and ultimately economic considerations. “Lack of workforce. When the cucumber is grown, the sell-off. There is currently very fierce competition with Dutch, Spanish cucumbers.”
In anticipation of Latvia's vegetable harvest, spring is not a good time for local customers, the Association of Latvian Fruit and Vegetable Traders said.
Last year's harvest of local vegetables has ended, the new one is not ready yet, and other countries' vegetables are bought at a higher price. When the harvest of Latvian vegetable growers comes in, the real competition with foreign vegetables will start.
“Our cucumber is fresher. It's freshly harvested. Is taken to bases and distributed. In any case, the road to the consumer is shorter,“ the head of “Bušas” noted.
In parallel to the competition fight, suspicions of unfair behavior have emerged - some local vegetable growers noticed that some of the cucumbers sold in Latvian shops may have come from Russia.
“Cucumber farmers had noticed that supposedly Polish cucumbers had strange flowers. They expressed the probability that those from Russia were passing through Poland. We can't keep track of this if we buy them in Poland. We don't mess with it, we make it clear, but if a Pole buys a cucumber grown in another country and then indicates it's their own, that's already a problem for their public institutions,” said Fruit and Vegetable Traders organization representative Uldis Jaunzems.
Since it would be virtually impossible to prove that fact, the association merely expresses its suspicions publicly. Meanwhile, vegetable growers estimated that a local cucumber and tomato would be more expensive in mid-April or late April, but prices would even out in early summer.
