PRESENT SITUATION, DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT AND PROBLEMS OF TERRITORIAL ORGANISATION OF VITICULTURE IN THE MOUNTAINOUS SHIRVAN ECONOMIC REGION

Abstract

The study's main objective is to analyze the current state of the territorial organization of viticulture in the Mountainous Shirvan economic region for the period 2010-2021 and to determine the direction of its development. The study also examines the problems of specializing in wine growing as the main crop in the region. To this end, research objectives have been set, such as the determination of the rate of development of viticulture in the Mountainous-Shirvan economic region and the differences between economic regions in terms of the development of viticulture and the identification of the factors that have led to them, and detailed analyses have been carried out. In the article, the collection and analysis of statistical data, the ranking of the regions by the area of agricultural land and the working patterns of the people have been performed. The data of the State Statistical Committee and the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) are the main database of the research. The software ArcGis (10.3) has been used for the mapping of the territory. During the research carried out, an increase in the area under vines was observed in the region. However, the opposite trend, a decrease in production, was noted. At the same time, there has been a decline in productivity over the years. In individual economic districts of the region, including Shamakhi district, the area under vines increased by 41% and production by 3.5 times, while in Ismayilli district the area under vines increased by 21%, but production decreased by 25.2%. The main reason for this is that the productivity of the vineyards in the region has been reduced by up to two times as much. As a result, with the decline in productivity, the planting habits of the population and their interest in viticulture have diminished or shown only partial interest. There have been major changes in the area planted in the Agsu and Gobustan regions.In both regions, there was a change in agricultural area and, consequently, a decrease in vineyard planting. The interest in planting vineyards in the Agsu region, which was in third place in the planting ranking in 2015, has fallen to seventh place in 2021. It was found that viticultural specialisation was not clearly defined or registered by sector in the studies carried out in the region. The article concludes that, despite the presence of wineries in the region, viticulture is not the main area of specialisation. Due to a trend in production and productivity, it has been observed in certain regions that wineries have experienced a decline in supply.