The employee's wages for harvesting berries in Ukraine

Relatively low paying manual labour is a competitive advantage of Ukraine in the production of berries.

This was during the first National agricultural conference Million per hectare "the expert said berry market of Ukraine Oleg Bosyi.

So, today the employee's wages for harvesting berries in Ukraine does not exceed 5 euros per day. Thus, the cost of manual labor in the country in this segment are the lowest in Europe. According to the expert, a special advantage is the production of berries in small farms.

"We always say that the production of berries is beneficial when using intensive technologies, which yield high productivity, but we are talking about industrial scale production, i.e. a large area. Growing, for example, raspberries in greenhouses, it is possible to obtain 1 million USD. ha, but before that you need to invest more than $2 million in production, so high-intensity technology at smaller sites will be too costly. However, the production of berries on small plantations may be economically advantageous due to the use of relatively cheap labor," - said O. Barefoot.

In addition, even when using intensive technologies in production of berries the need for manual labour remains due to the sensitive nature of the products. For example, to mechanize the harvesting everbearing raspberry is impossible. Thus, the low cost of manual labor remains the advantage of Ukraine in the scale of the industrial cultivation of berries.