Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Will Russia face shortage of potato this year?
Experts think that it will be enough of potato, but its price will seriously rise. While earlier retail price for 1 kg of potato did not exceed 6 RUB, now it is able to easily increase to 10 RUB. Then after mark-ons it will jump to 25-30 RUB per kg.
According to the experts' estimations, Russia will loose almost half of its potato crop. But Ministry of Agriculture and Association of Private Family Farmers and Agricultural Cooperatives of Russia (AKKOR) do not hurry with their conclusions and wait for September.
Partially shortage of potato will be solved by purchase of Belarusian product. Agriculture of Belarus is developed better, and crops are less hurt by drought. Minsk reported of 40 000 tonnes of potato for Moscow and 100 000 tonnes for Tatarstan.
Analysts of the news agency of Trading Academy «Masterforex-V» say that Belarusian potato expansion at the Russian market will seriously injure local potato producers. Farmers, who traditionally took crop credits, will face hard times, as they are not able to pay under such loans. Farmers have already applied to AKKOR for help.
According to opinion of analysts from the project "Fruit-inform.com" notwithstanding record areas under potato this year, Russia will have the lowest production of this tuber crop of the last three years and recordly low productivity. Even modern cultivation technologies did not manage to save potato crop, fallen under impact of anomalously high temperatures and drought. In connection with this, growth of prices for potato is inevitable. Besides this, import increase and export decrease of potato are worth expecting.