May 14, 2015. A number of Sverdlovsk Region-based agricultural businesses might stop using refrigerated storage facilities, the constituency’s Agriculture & Food Minister Sergei Sharapov told UrBC.

‘New vegetable storage facilities will get built in any case, but some companies might not be able to afford the pricy foreign equipment. For example, they might have to give up on the idea of buying refrigerators,’ he says.

According to Sharapov, the local farmers’ vegetable-storing needs are currently covered by 80%.

At the same time, the lack of refrigerating equipment might mean they could give up on long-term storage.

Head of Bitimsky Agricultural Cooperative Mikhail Maltsev says that carrots, for one, cannot get stored past February if there are no refrigerators around.