Pasta Factory Convened Agrarians
February 18, 2019. Director General of the Agroliga Plant Selection Center Svetlana Dolaberidze was invited by The Omsk Macaroni Factory to take part in the seminar “Durum; the Present and the Future”.
This meeting with farmers and experts was the first for the pasta maker. What was the reason for that meeting.
As the Minister of Agriculture and Food of the Omsk Region, Maxim Chekusov, noted, the structure of production and its target objectives are determined by the market. To ensure a stable supply of high-quality raw materials – durum wheat – it is necessary to conclude long-term contracts, to determine the rules of the game. According to Maxim Sergeevich, the success of our production is based on high-level technologies and technological discipline. The achievements of domestic and foreign scientists are also important.
General Director of the Omsk Macaroni Factory Reinhold Frick announced the main goal of the event – to establish a stable supply of high-quality wheat grain. Indeed, over the past 1.5-2 years, the company switched to the production of pasta only from this grain, completely eliminating any impurities of soft wheat. As time has shown, this strategy was the right decision: buyers, as they say, felt the difference, and the Dobrodeya brand is gaining popularity not only in the Omsk Region, but also in other regions, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. For several years now, deliveries to China have been adjusted.
I must say that everyone who came to the seminar was unusually lucky. From the head of OpenFiields and Barilla’s consultant, Roberto Ranieri (Italy), they learned about global trends in consumer demand for pasta (pasta), in durum wheat breeding strategies. And Margarita Rozova from the Altai Agrobiotechnology Research Center and Mikhail Evdokimov from the Omsk Agrarian Research Center told us about the selection achievements in our country.
In recognition of Mikhail Grigorievich, who has been working with durum wheat for over 40 years, the seminar organized by the Omsk Pasta Factory was the first specialized event in his life dedicated to his favorite culture. The breeder from Omsk was forced to admit that in order to keep up with the times, so that new Russian varieties of durum wheat were in demand by processors, it is necessary to revise the selection priorities by adding at least one new indicator – the gluten index. Until now, it was not taken into account and the insufficient quality of gluten became the Achilles heel of Russian varieties.
The situation can be rectified if two directions are simultaneously developed in parallel: to select for increasing the gluten index and to strictly follow the technology of growing intensive varieties adapted to local conditions. It is no coincidence that there was a special silence in the hall during the speeches of Svetlana Dolaberze, the Director General of the Plant Breeding Center, and Sergey Groshev, the Head of Hard Wheat, from Agroliga. Omsk agricultural producers eagerly absorbed every word of experts, realizing that profit directly depends on the knowledge and ability to work with such a demanding crop as hard wheat.