July 26 2007, 09:26

Price difference creates export opportunities for some vegetables and cucurbit crops from Ukraine to Poland and other EU countries

According to information provided by ""Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits", tomato prices are considerably higher in Poland than in Ukraine. Field tomatoes have been sold for several weeks already on Ukrainian markets; the start of tomato harvesting season is just planned for the end of July in Poland. Polish farmers complain on the excessive damage of the plantings caused by pests and diseases, tomato blight in particular.

Tomato prices also remain relatively high on the freshmarket in Ukraine. It's worth mentioning that the prices are quite equal for field tomatoes and greenhouse tomatoes. This crop is sold for $0.4-0.8/kg on the wholesale market and approximately $0.1kg cheaper if sold directly on field or in greenhouse. The prices for tomatoes may insignificantly decline soon, because the active harvesting of field tomatoes will start in the country.

At the present moment greenhouse tomato is sold for $1-1.2/kg in wholesale in Poland; no field tomato is available for sale. Also we'd like to note that the wholesale price for tomato in Ukraine is approximately equal to the price recorded at the same period of time past year (primarily due to early ripening of field tomatoes). Polish tomatoes are in average 1.5-2.0 times are more expensive than in 2006.

In the previous years Ukraine supplied rather insignificant volumes of tomatoes to Polish market at summer. At the present moment a real export opportunity exists. Tomatoes may be exported together with such crops as bell pepper, short squash, cucumber, eggplant and watermelon. Most of these products are twice and more times as expensive in Poland. The price difference for squash and eggplant is up to 3-5 times as great. The price difference in Ukraine and other EU countries is even more noticeable.

At the same time Ukraine is able to import potato, carrot, table beet and white cabbage from Poland; these crops are 50-70% cheaper in this country. The price difference for onion was observed in the beginning of this season; as of today, it has graded because of the onion supply growth in Ukraine. However, to the experts' opinion, the prices for onion may rapidly decline in Poland when the harvesting period for late onion starts.