May 26 2005, 11:17 Agrarian Marketing Project

Vegetables are more expensive nowadays in Ukraine than a year before

The analysis of the wholesale prices has been carried out by the Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP) on the major vegetables consumed by the Ukrainian market. The result of the analysis let us say that this year in the end of May the cost of "vegetable market basket" has increased comparing to the same period in the previous year. However, this price growth is not significant enough, as while some vegetables grew very expensive, the prices on other vegetables remained stable or even decreased. Cabbage and root crops mainly contributed to the price growth trend. Thus, in the last decade of May past year cabbage was supplied on USD $ 0.1-0.19/kg; nowadays the wholesale sets of cabbage cost USD $ 0.55-0.59/kg. The price difference on carrot and red beets is even greater. At present the wholesale price on carrot is USD $ 0.43-0.55/kg, past year this commodity cost less than USD $ 0.19/kg. The red beets of the past year harvest is supplied now on USD $ 0.39-0.49/kg, past year it cost USD $ 0.15/kg. The apples grew dearer as well. We should also say that in the end of May this year the prices on early commodities are higher, that is resulted by the delay of harvesting period because of the cold weather in April and in the beginning of May.

This year the prices on potato, cucumber and tomato are comparable to the past year prices.

At the same time, onion can be bought cheaper today; the price on this commodity is 20-30% lower than in the end of May 2004.