Developing Potato Farming and Refining in Russian Karelia

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The goal of the project was to develop potato farming and to found a potato refinery in the Republic of Karelia for industrial potato production. In addition, the ultimate intention was to establish a high-quality, flexible supply chain responsible for potato production, refining and marketing in Russian Karelia. However, reaching this objective was seen as requiring a lot of information. The information gathered earlier was fragmented, pertained mainly to the regional administrative level of Russia, and was at least partially outdated. For this reason, the project’s short-term goal was to assess the farmer network and complete an interview survey of farmers. The interviews were to be used for assessing the current potato production of the Republic of Karelia (quality, amount and utilisation level) and the level of training needed by the farmers and the rest of the production chain. Similarly, it was seen necessary to assess the areas suitable for farming, their ownership structures, zoning issues, environmental issues and issues regarding social structure, infrastructure and market structure that were significant to potato farming. The intention was to design training for the potato farmers and the production chain in the future and to begin construction of a production facility based on the research.

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