Horticulture in Uzbekistan

At the beginning of autumn, we analyzed how Uzbekistan can strengthen its position among the world leaders in fruit exports and came to the conclusion that it required improving the quality and safety of products, more modern set of varieties, and improved approaches to storage, cooling, processing, and packaging would allow Uzbekistan to solve one of its main problems which is the high level of dependence on product supplies to Russia.

The nut business of Uzbekistan in 2020 suffered from low world prices. However, this business remains very promising for the country.
It should also be noted that among the most popular materials in 2020 from EastFruit’s Youtube channel, there were several videos about walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. They were very often watched in Uzbekistan, which indicates a high interest in the walnut business in this country. Here are links to those popular videos:
Harvesting Chandler walnuts in Georgia’s largest modern orchard with drying and processing at Agrovia 
Seven-year-old Chandler walnut orchard in California
How to get 3 tons of walnuts per hectare in the third year
Technology, techniques, and the economics of growing and marketing almonds in California
Technology of growing pistachios in California
Also, EastFruit’s annual review “Nut business: 2020 market summary for walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and other nuts” has been read by 15,000 people!
In November 2020, we wrote our article identifying the top 10 problems for intensive apple orchards in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and other Central Asian countries. This resonated throughout the region and in Uzbekistan as well. We explained why it is not worth growing vegetables and potatoes in the aisles of intensive orchards, because EastFruit received regular complaints from Uzbek farmers that officials were forcing them to do this.
The onset of cold weather revealed additional problems in the horticulture sector of Uzbekistan, in particular, problems with its greenhouse business. Our article “Why is Uzbekistan killing their successful greenhouse industry?” pointed out the obvious problems of greenhouses in Uzbekistan, who, unlike producers of greenhouse vegetables from neighbouring countries, did not have guaranteed access to natural gas. At the same time, Uzbekistan was a large exporter of gas and preferred to sell it in the form of raw materials than in the form of products with high added value, which are greenhouse vegetables and berries.
This was just the beginning of the problems of the greenhouse sector in Uzbekistan. In November, reports from Rosselkhoznadzor began to arrive about a ban on the imports of greenhouse tomatoes and peppers from regions in Uzbekistan. A quick survey of subscribers on EastFruit’s Telegram channel showed that 74% of readers share the point of view on the political background of detecting quarantine objects and only 26% believe that the main reason is the poor plant protection system of farmers in Uzbekistan.
However, this was only the beginning. Russia discovered a new quarantine organism on Uzbek dried apricots and introduced new bans on supplies. It then extended the ban on the supply of greenhouse tomatoes and peppers to suppliers from the Kashkadarya and Navoi regions of Uzbekistan due to the detection of the tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) as was the case of supplies from the Fergana Valley as well. In general, at the end of the year, Russia began to actively limit the imports of fruits and greenhouse vegetables from many countries. All these market troubles have led to an increase in wholesale prices for greenhouse vegetables in Uzbekistan by an average of 79% per year.
Yet, November was not just marked by problems. The retail audit of the fruit and vegetable departments of supermarkets in Uzbekistan revealed a new leader, the Green Apple chain, which pushed aside the traditional leaders Korzinka.uz and Makro in the rating of fruit and vegetable departments.
The topic of supermarkets in Uzbekistan also flowed into December. At the beginning of December 2020, another ambitious newcomer entered the market – Baraka Market – who decided to open five stores at once! Also, by the end of December in the capital city of Tashkent, the first store of the international supermarket chain Carrefour finally opened.
Already in January 2021, we quickly analyzed how successful the retail newcomers were in the fruit and vegetable trade. It turned out that both Carrefour and Baraka Market could not squeeze the leaders of the fruit and vegetable trade, but Carrefour was noted for very low prices.
Therefore, in 2021, we should expect a continuation of the supermarket boom. For example, the largest retailer of Kazakhstan, Magnum Cash & Carry, announced ambitious plans to enter the Uzbek market. The low vegetable prices at Carrefour shows that supermarket chains are aiming to fight bazaars in price as well as each other. Also, there is an obvious shortage of retail space for new stores, in particular, the first high-profile conflict over retail space between Carrefour and Makro arose recently.
This concludes the 2020 review for the fruit and vegetable sector in Uzbekistan. Time will tell whether the country’s exporters will be able to take advantage of the new opportunities in 2021. Let’s hope for the absence of serious weather disasters and for the normalization of logistics, which has a key impact on Uzbek fruit and vegetable exports.