Potential of protected vegetable production in Bosnia and Herzegovina and future perspectives

Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) has favourable soil and climatic conditions for growing most of vegetables. Vegetables were cultivated on 75,000 ha during the year 2013, and in 2014 on 72,000 ha. It is very difficult to talk about the official statistics when it comes to agriculture and even the state of vegetable production. The agricultural census has not been completed yet, while the B&H Statistics Agency takes only the basic information of areas, yields, whose accuracy is questionable. It is estimated that B&H today has about 700 ha of unheated greenhouses, and 15 ha of heated greenhouses, of which about 2/3 is in the Federation of B&H (FB&H) and 1/3 is in Republic of Serbian. The largest protected areas are located in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (360 ha). In the structure of the greenhouses production, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, pepper in the spring-summer period and lettuce, spinach and green onions in the autumn-winter period are most commonly grown. Most of greenhouse production in Herzegovina is organized in such way to alternate three cultures in one calendar year, while in reduced number of objects, four cultures (lettuce, tomato, tomato, lettuce) or (lettuce, cucumber, tomato, lettuce) alternate. In greenhouses in the continental part of FB&H, often two cultures alternate during the year, while the three cultures growing is rare.