Organic production is in hands of careful women
45 km from Mamadysh, near the village of Zyuri, famous for its night Sabantuy, there is a village called Berezovaya Polyana. There is only one Scribe's house inhabited there. The inhabitants of this house suddenly became famous. They received the first certificate of conformity in Tatarstan for the production of organic products.
“In fact, it didn't work out by itself,” says Oksana Pistsova, head of the Andryushkino farm. - I had to go not a very long but a difficult way.
At first, the Pistsovs were not afraid to change their lives abruptly: they moved from Naberezhnye Chelny, where Oksana was engaged in trade, her husband Marat - legal services, to a remote village - to the homeland of Oksana Pistsova's grandparents. There they started a new and unfamiliar business - growing fruit and berry crops. For this, at first, they bought the share land of the population who had left these regions - 170 hectares. They began to unfold on them. Now they have 150 hectares of orchard, 10 hectares of strawberries, 3 hectares of raspberries, 2 hectares of black currants and 3 hectares of a greenhouse, where a breeding nursery has been created.
They already have a decent fleet of equipment: 5 tractors, trailed and mounted machines for tillage. In 2016, they received a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Tatarstan for 1.5 million rubles as state support, but they invested even more of their own funds.
- My husband sold his expensive car and switched to a regular one, and the difference was invested in the creation of a material and technical base, - shares Oksana Viktorovna. - There were also savings from previous entrepreneurial activities. Now Marat masterfully drives any tractor from our park.
But how did the family manage to get a certificate for organic products? The thing is that during the three years of operation of the Andryushkino farm, the specialists of the RSMC Test-Tatarstan CJSC took soil analyzes on the plantations of the farm, and came to the conclusion that the soil here meets the necessary requirements. And that was the first step. And the second step was their refusal to use pesticides and mineral fertilizers in their work and the cultivation of exclusively biological and agrotechnical methods.
This is a bold choice of people who have chosen an unfamiliar path. But the entrepreneurs made their choice. And, apparently, they do not intend to turn off the way. The other day they flew to Sochi - to the events of the Berry Union: exchange experiences, ask about new products.
- This year we are planning to establish a nursery for the reproduction of fruit crops, - says Oksana Viktorovna. - We will grow seedlings ourselves.