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| Home | News | Photo | Grapevine snails for export and more: A farm in Belarus is about to gather its first harvest

Grapevine snails for export and more: A farm in Belarus is about to gather its first harvest

Grapevine snails for export and more: A farm in Belarus is about to gather its first harvest
15 Aug 2017

Belarus’ first grapevine snail farm Ratov is located in Korelichi District, Grodno Oblast. This autumn the farm will collect its first harvest. "We are the only ones to start growing snails from hatchlings and wild hatchlings at that. We collected the breeding stock right here, near the village of Dolginovo," said the farm’s owner Vladimir Rabkov.

Three years later – the time a hatchling requires to become a mature snail of the right size – the farm is ready to ship the merchandise to partners in Belarus and abroad. Optimal humidity and temperature, a special diet, and warm premises for the winter have been beneficial for the snails, which grow larger than their wild counterparts.

Grapevine snails are not an exotic food in Belarus anymore. In the last five years the country earned about $4 million by exporting grapevine snails. However, snails have only been collected and procured up till now. Auctions for collecting snails are arranged in various parts of the country bearing in mind the commercial stock of the snails and environmental considerations. It is remarkable that a show featuring grapevine snails – a snail race – was arranged in the town of Glubokoye during the Cherry Festival.

Grapevine snails for export and more: A farm in Belarus is about to gather its first harvest
The Ratov farm
The farm’s manager and owner Vladimir Rabkov
Farmer’s family – Vladimir and Victoria Rabkovs – grow snails
Victoria Rabkova feeds snails
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