PRESENT STATE OF, AND PERSPECTIVES ON FRUIT PRODUCTION IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: CHALLENGES FOR RESEARCH EDUCATION

In most countries of Central and Eastern Europe, fruit consumption per capita is below human needs.
However, in some countries, like Hungary, Poland, and maybe Moldavia, fruit growers deal with surplus production.
Possible further increase of fruit production in those countries is limited by low income of a part of their population, and hence limited internal demand, and by increasing barriers for imported fruits raised by Western countries.
On the other hand, there are Eastern European countries, as Russia (most of its regions) or Byelorussia, where a drastic shortage of fresh fruit exists, particularly in the winter time.
As to the type of fruit farms, Polish fruit industry differs from all other Central and Eastern European Countries by their private character.
Collectivisation never advanced seriously in Poland; about 80% of land was private-owned in the communist period, with more than 90% of private orchards.
Quasi-private orchards were in Hungary.
In other countries, only home gardens or so called "collective lots" (lots from 300 to 1000 square meter, cultivated by factory of office workers), were private or semi-private; commercial fruit production was concentrated in state or collective farms.
The orchards in state and collective farms was big, reaching maximum size ca. 300 Ha in Poland and ca. 5000 Ha in Russia or Moldavia.
Most of these huge orchards produce relatively low yields of fruits of rather low quality.

In general, a major part of the fruit industry in most of these countries is extensive, with exceptions of advanced growers who run orchards on a modern level, reaching productivity and quality equal to the highest world standards.

Strategies for a Modern Pomology

A. Sadowski

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1995.400.6