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Ukrainian potato production down by 10% in 2015 – Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine
Ukrainian potato production is expected to total just 21.4 mln tons in 2015 against 23.7 mln tons a year before, according to Mr. Aleksey Pavlenko, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.
«Preliminary figures show about 21.4 mln tons of potatoes to be harvested by both commercial and uncommercial Ukrainian farms… Potato production in 2014 totaled 23.7 mln tons», Mr. Pavlenko wrote on Facebook.
He also said that per-capita consumption of potatoes amounts to 147 kg annually in Ukraine. As a result, consumption totals 6.3 mln tons, just a third of Ukrainian potato production. Almost all Ukrainian potatoes (98%) are produced by household farms.
As it was earlier stated, Ukrainian production of field-grown vegetables totaled 4.4 mln tons as of September 1, 2015, a decrease of 6.5% year-on-year. Potato production totaled 13.9 mln tons as of September 1, 2015, a decrease of 16.8% compared with the same period of the previous season.
According to Mr. Pavlenko, Ukrainian vegetable production is expected to total 8.7 mln tons in 2015, 30% higher than Ukrainians' consumption of vegetables (6.7 mln tons based on 160.2 kg of per-capita consumption). Ukrainian vegetable production grew by 2.6% to 9.6 mln tons in 2014, while production of potatoes increased by 8.4% and reached 23.7 mln tons.