Ukraine: Potato areas decreased by 21%
The Ukrainian potato market has suffered greatly due to the war and occupation of the southern regions. This is evidenced by the research results of the Food and Land Use Research Center of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).
It is noted that more than a third of all areas designated for planting root crops, vegetables, and tuber crops – 47.1 thousand hectares as of 2024 – are allocated for potato cultivation in Ukraine.
Compared to the pre-war year of 2021, the potato areas have decreased by 21%, and production volume has decreased by 11%. Domestic early potatoes, mainly grown in the south, have virtually disappeared from the market, analysts add.
At the same time, the consumer price of potatoes has increased from 11.2 UAH per kilogram in 2021 to 24.0 UAH per kilogram in 2024, and the period of “low” prices has decreased from 10 months in the pre-war period to two to four months in 2023-2024.
Over two years, potato imports, which decreased by 17 times in 2022, have been restored, but the geography of imports has completely changed, analysts claim. While in 2019-2021 there was a sharp increase in imports from Belarus and Russia, in 2024 the main suppliers were Azerbaijan, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, and Georgia.
Fuente: agronews.ua
