Food self-sufficiency is one of the key elements of the national security. Russian sugar producers have managed to create production chains protected from external factors.
Having started in 1992 as a sugar importer Prodimex soon got involved in launching its own manufacturing. But in the late 90s and early 2000s sugar business faced a lack of reliable suppliers for raw materials, namely sugar beet. «Agricultural manufacturers rocked from one crop to another, they were unable to provide long-term supplies. We were forced „to go into the land“ — to acquire land,» says Viktor Aleksakhin, General Director of the agricultural holding. The total amount of the company’s arable land has almost doubled over the past ten years and amounted to more than 900 thousand hectares.
The area under sugar beet crops has increased tenfold since 2004 and reached more than 160,000 hectares in 2019. Modern agricultural technologies recommend sowing sugar beet on the same field once every four years and its best predecessors are winter grains, legumes, and corn. At the same time beets provide soil rest from more intensively cultivated crops — it breaks the cycle of many pests, weeds and diseases, and reduces the need for pesticides. Nowadays aside from sugar beet Prodimex farms grow wheat, barley, peas, corn, sunflower, rapeseed, flax and soybeans.
Diversification is considered another important factor in the efficiency and sustainability of the company’s sugar business.
Having started in 1992 as a sugar importer Prodimex soon got involved in launching its own manufacturing. But in the late 90s and early 2000s sugar business faced a lack of reliable suppliers for raw materials, namely sugar beet. «Agricultural manufacturers rocked from one crop to another, they were unable to provide long-term supplies. We were forced „to go into the land“ — to acquire land,» says Viktor Aleksakhin, General Director of the agricultural holding. The total amount of the company’s arable land has almost doubled over the past ten years and amounted to more than 900 thousand hectares.
The area under sugar beet crops has increased tenfold since 2004 and reached more than 160,000 hectares in 2019. Modern agricultural technologies recommend sowing sugar beet on the same field once every four years and its best predecessors are winter grains, legumes, and corn. At the same time beets provide soil rest from more intensively cultivated crops — it breaks the cycle of many pests, weeds and diseases, and reduces the need for pesticides. Nowadays aside from sugar beet Prodimex farms grow wheat, barley, peas, corn, sunflower, rapeseed, flax and soybeans.
Diversification is considered another important factor in the efficiency and sustainability of the company’s sugar business.