September 23 2015, 08:45 Fruit-Inform

Ukrainian apple growers to be the first to suffer from Crimea blockade

Ukrainian apple growers' ambitious plans to raise their prices year-on-year may fail due to Crimea blockade, according to Fruit-Inform. The market analysts also expect prices to go down year-on-year in the nearest time as it was exports to Russia that influenced pricing in the Ukrainian apple market in autumn 2014.

«Ukrainian farms have faced problems with apple sales before the start of Crimea blockade», says Ms. Tetiana Getman, Head of Fruit-Inform. «Ukrainian apples began to lose their competitive strength in the Russian market due to high prices in the second half of August; therefore, growers had to reduce their prices in the beginning of autumn. As a result, full stop of shipments to Russia will exert serious pressure on prices in the internal market».

According to Fruit-Inform data, current prices of Ukrainian apples have already reached last year's levels despite farmers having been able to sell at prices 20% higher year-on-year since the beginning of harvesting. It should be noted that Fruit-Inform expects an increase of at least 6% in Ukrainian total apple production this year; therefore, lack of exports will negatively affect prices during active harvesting. Under those conditions, growers are often uninterested in selling apples, which storage potential enables to keep them until the beginning of winter. However, there are not many farms that have sufficient storage capacity; therefore, the supply will certainly be growing during harvesting, while prices will be going down.