According to representatives of the Association of Potato Growers of Moldova, the first potatoes harvested from the fields under plastic film will go on sale around May 5-10, that is, in a time close to the average. The cool weather that settled in the second half of April will probably not slow down the ripening.

The association believes that, despite the multi-level crisis, there are good conditions for the sale of early potatoes this year. First, there will probably be relatively few of locally produced early potatoes this year. Farms in several southern and eastern regions of the country have been specializing in their cultivation for many years. According to expert estimates, the total area of ​​their fields in the best seasons was about 300-400 ha. However, it has been rapidly declining in the last two or three years due to competition with imported early potatoes, as well as due to a reorientation towards the production of late potatoes. By the way, the most pronounced increase in potato prices last season was in the winter and spring months of this year.

Secondly, local early potatoes will probably go on sale almost simultaneously with imported ones this year (sales of imported potatoes at the end of the last decade started earlier and at a higher price). In 2022, it is still cold in the regions of Romania, from which early expensive potatoes are exported for the Moldovan market.

Thirdly, early potatoes have become a niche, store product over the previous two years of the pandemic. Their price – presumably 20-25 MDL/kg ($1.08-1.36/kg) in the chain retail this year – will not contrast too much with the price of last year’s washed potatoes packed in nets or in casseroles and flowpack bags.

Сообщение Early potatoes will become available on the Moldovan market in the first decade of May появились сначала на EastFruit.

The first wholesale batches of early potatoes of the new harvest became available on the markets of the capital of Uzbekistan in the second week of March 2022, and by the end of the month, their prices had decreased by 25%.

According to the Uzbek EastFruit team, the first wholesale batches of early potatoes of the current year’s harvest were available in the markets of the capital of Uzbekistan on 11-17 March 2022, at about the same time and at the same price as last year. From 17 to 31 March 2022, their average wholesale prices decreased from 16 000 to 12 000 UZS/kg (from $1.38 to $1.05), i.e. by 25% in two weeks. In addition, as of the end of March 2022, the average wholesale prices for early potatoes were 14% lower than at the same date in 2021.

Prices for early potatoes tend to decline rapidly as supply volumes increase in the wholesale markets. If we assume that their price will decrease at about the same rate as in previous years, then we should expect wholesale prices for early potatoes in the range of 5 000-6 500 UZS/kg by the end of April 2022.

Meanwhile, wholesale prices for last year’s potatoes (harvest 2021) in Uzbekistan currently correspond to last year’s levels. As of March 31, 2022, their average wholesale price was 4 000 UZS/kg ($0.35) – 3 times cheaper than early potatoes. However, both early potatoes and last year’s potatoes are in demand.

Сообщение Early potatoes in Uzbekistan fell in price by 25% in two weeks появились сначала на EastFruit.

Due to prolonged rainfall in the first half of March 2022 and the subsequent cooling in the second half of March in Uzbekistan, fruit growers fear the deterioration of fruit trees, and vegetable growers are worried about the harvest of early potatoes and early vegetables, EastFruit experts report.

March 2022 was abnormally rainy in Uzbekistan – unprecedented in terms of intensity and duration of rains. According to the Center for hydrometeorological services of Uzbekistan, there have been almost 2 monthly rainfall in the capital of Uzbekistan from 5 to 17 March, in mountainous and foothill areas – 2-3 times more rains than usual. During this period, it had been raining almost daily with short breaks.

But the weather surprises in Uzbekistan did not end there, as the rainy weather gave way to a cold snap anomalous for this time of year. On March 16, 2022, the Center for hydrometeorological services of Uzbekistan forecasted a sharp decrease in air temperature on 18-21 March throughout the country. In particular, in Tashkent, Samarkand, Jizzakh and Syrdarya regions, the temperature was expected to drop to 2°C during the day, and to -2°C at night. In Bukhara and Navoi regions – up to -6°C at night. In Karakalpakstan and Khorezm region it was expected that the night temperature would drop to -10°C. In the foothills and mountainous regions of the country, the air temperature at night was expected to drop to -7°C.

According to the State Committee on Statistics, the total share of the above regions in the total fruit and berry production of Uzbekistan in 2021 amounted to about 40%, and in the total vegetable production – a little more than 50%.

Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan noted that a cold snap after prolonged rains could damage, first of all, the harvest of early-flowering stone fruits – almonds and apricots. In addition, it can affect the yield of peaches, plums, cherries, sour cherries, walnuts and late-flowering apples and pears.

Meanwhile, no negative impact of weather surprises on the harvest of fruits and nuts is expected in the northern regions of the country due to later flowering there – 15-20 days later.

At the briefing, a representative of the ministry spoke in detail about agrotechnical measures to protect fruit and nut orchards from upcoming frosts. To support agricultural producers, the Ministry of Agriculture has established operational groups and regional headquarters in each region of Uzbekistan.

Recently, the TV channel “Uzbekistan 24” showed a video about how growers of the Kibray district of the Tashkent region save blossoming fruit trees from frost by “heating” them. Dense smoke and small bonfires allow to raise the temperature by several degrees of heat: bonfires are lit in a checkerboard pattern throughout the orchard and trees are wrapped in smoke, taking into account the direction of the wind, they increase smoke or leave it smoldering.

In addition, these frosts also pose a threat to the harvest of early potatoes and early vegetables. The Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan has issued a series of recommendations to prevent the negative impact of cold and wet spring weather on the early harvest of potatoes and vegetables.

According to the forecast by the Center for hydrometeorological services of Uzbekistan, there will be no intense and prolonged rains in the remaining days of March.

According to climate scientists, global warming leads to an increase in the extremeness of weather events, including an increase in the frequency of abnormally dry or abnormally wet periods. March 2022 in Uzbekistan is a vivid confirmation of this.

Weather anomalies in the winter months and early spring of 2021 became the number one topic that affected all other aspects of the work of vegetable, fruit and nut producers in Uzbekistan, those involved in the trade and processing of fruits and vegetables and, of course, consumers.

Сообщение Spring frosts in Uzbekistan: fruit and vegetable growers are trying to save the future harvest появились сначала на EastFruit.

For about ten days now, consumers in Uzbekistan have been buying ultra-early potatoes of the current year’s harvest from film greenhouses. The harvesting started on February 10-15, 2022 in the southern regions of the country. These potatoes were planted in November-December 2021.

EastFruit analysts draw attention to the rapid decline in prices for early potatoes. Ultra-early potatoes became available on February 21, 2022 in several stores of the Makro supermarket chain in the capital of Uzbekistan at a retail price of 23 000 UZS/kg ($2.1). Two days later, prices for early potatoes dropped to 20 000 UZS/kg ($1.8), i.e. by 13%, in the same chain.

On February 26, 2022, ultra-early potatoes became available in several stores of another supermarket chain in the capital of Uzbekistan, Korzinka, at a retail price of 16 000 UZS/kg ($1.5).

Thus, ultra-early potatoes in the capital of Uzbekistan fell in price from 23 000 to 16 000 UZS/kg (from $2.1 to $1.5), i.e. by 30%, within 5 days from the moment they appeared on the retail market – from February 21 to February 26, 2022.

Earlier, EastFruit wrote that, according to estimates of producers, the planting areas of ultra-early potatoes in November-December 2021 remained unchanged. Since no weather anomalies were observed in Uzbekistan in December 2021 – February 2022, the yield of ultra-early potatoes is expected to stay at the level of previous years. However, these potatoes play a minor role for the mass market, as they are sold at a higher price and in relatively

Сообщение Ultra-early potatoes are rapidly becoming cheaper in the supermarkets of Uzbekistan появились сначала на EastFruit.

The Uzbek EastFruit team reports that open field potatoes were planted in the southernmost region of Uzbekistan, the Surkhandarya region, in the first ten days of February 2022. According to farmers’ estimates, the area planted with early potatoes in January and early February 2022 has been increased by a third. Early potatoes planting in Uzbekistan is now gradually moving to the central part of the country.

The first early open field potatoes in Uzbekistan will be harvested in the second half of March, but mass harvesting will start in April. Due to fears of a shortage of potatoes in the market, Uzbekistan has become one of their world’s largest importers in 2021. Obviously, the situation with the supply of potatoes has normalized now and there is not much time left before the start of harvesting.

Moreover, potato prices in Uzbekistan, unlike other countries in the region, even slightly decreased in early February 2022. The average wholesale price for potatoes in Uzbekistan decreased by 20% over the previous two weeks.

The main reason is the large stocks of imported potatoes in storage, which are losing marketable condition, as spring is approaching. The sale of last year’s potatoes is spurred on by the fact that farmers in the southern regions have already started harvesting early potatoes from film greenhouses. These potatoes were planted in November-December 2021.

Read also: Uzbekistan overtook Moldova and is catching up with Turkey in grape exports to Russia

According to selective estimates of producers, the planting area of ultra-early potatoes remained unchanged. Judging by the current state of the crop, the growth process is normal, since no weather anomalies were observed in December-February. Accordingly, ultra-early potato yields are expected to be similar to previous years, if there are no weather surprises during pre-ripening and harvesting. However, these potatoes do not play a significant role for the mass market, as they are sold at a higher price and their volume is limited.

It should be noted that wholesale prices for potatoes in February approached the prices of last year for the first time this season. Although prices in February 2021 were significantly higher than in the same month in 2020.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan, the total potato planting area in 2021 amounted to 78 200 ha. However, the increase in potato planting areas in the south of the country suggests that the rest of Uzbekistan will also increase the area of potato plantations in 2022, which will eventually mean planting areas in the whole country increase.

It is possible that we will see a further decrease in the relatively high wholesale prices for potatoes in Uzbekistan in April.

Сообщение Early potatoe area in the South of Uzbekistan increased by a third появились сначала на EastFruit.

Despite the fact that the average wholesale price for early potatoes in Moldova has decreased by almost 30% in June, wholesale working prices remained within the range of 6-7 MDL/kg ($ 0.33-0.39/kg). At the end of June last year, wholesale early potatoes on the Moldovan market were sold cheaper – 5-6 MDL/kg ($ 0.28-0.34/kg).

It seems strange at first glance: 2020 was a year of extreme drought, and this year the weather conditions for potato harvest have been favourable so far, especially in some regions. That is, one could assume that given positive forecasts for the harvest in 2021, prices for potatoes will begin to decline in the beginning of June (as it was in 2020) and will fall below last year’s level for the same period.

In the opinion of potato farmers, two factors have turned the situation to their advantage. The first is the relatively late arrival of local early potatoes to the domestic market, where their supply is low and the demand is not fully satisfied. The second factor is relatively small imports. At the same time, an important category of importers, large supermarket chains, are still keeping prices for potatoes (as well as for almost any imported fruit and vegetables) at a relatively high level – significantly higher than the prices of wholesale and retail markets. Thanks to this, local vegetable growers could sell expensive potatoes grown in greenhouses and under agril at an affordable price with a profit.

Read also: The price for early potatoes has collapsed in Russia

However, potato growers believe that in a week or at most 10 days, the domestic fruit and vegetable market will be saturated and even abundant with open field potatoes. At the beginning of this week, in the markets of Chisinau, small potatoes from rural households and small farmers were available in small wholesalers and even retail at a price of 4-5 MDL/kg ($ 0.22-0.27/kg).

Сообщение Prices for early potatoes in Moldova are higher than last year, but will decline появились сначала на EastFruit.

Given the harvesting in the southern region, prices for potatoes of the new harvest in Russia have dropped sharply since the beginning of this week, according to analysts of the EastFruit project. According to the daily monitoring of the project, harvesting of early potatoes is now in full swing in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, as well as in the Astrakhan and Rostov regions.

In this regard, the supply of potatoes on the market has grown sharply, and their prices have fallen to 16-25 RUB/kg ($ 0.22-0.35/kg) since the beginning of the week, which is on average 27% cheaper than at the end last work week.

According to key market players, forecasts for local potato growers are not optimistic. On the one hand, there are not strong, but periodic rains in many regions of the Russian Federation this week. This creates good preconditions for the growth of potatoes. On the other hand, the increasing supply of potatoes on the market is likely to further reduce the selling prices in this segment.

To date, selling prices for potatoes in Russia have already dropped to the level of last year in the same period. Moreover, most producers believe that prices will continue to decline next week, as the supply of early potatoes will continue to increase every day.

Сообщение The price for early potatoes has collapsed in Russia появились сначала на EastFruit.

In Georgia, potato prices hit historic lows, stocks at are record levels, and imports are increasing

The Georgian team of EastFruit analysts draws attention to the unusual situation in the Georgian potato market this season. The first lots of early potatoes from greenhouses have already appeared on the market, prices for2020’s harvest potatoes are significantly lower than those of last year and the stocks are still unusually high, with imports that are still higher than last year! Nevertheless, it does not seem that Georgian potato producers are planning to reduce the area cultivated with tubers. Let’s figure out what are the reasons for this!

First of all, we note that the 2020/21 season will definitely be less profitable for potato farmers in Georgia. Moreover, in our opinion, not everyone will be able to sell the entire potatos stocks of the 2020 harvest, because potato imports remain high.

Source: east-fruit

Monitoring of wholesale prices by East-Fruit shows that in the first quarter of 2021, prices decreased by an average of 49% in USD and by 37% in lari compared to the same period in 2020. Such a significant difference between March 2020 and March 2021 prices is mainly due to the fact that in 2020, during this period, the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic began and consumers started panic-buying food. However, the current prices are also lower compared to 2019.

Farmers associate the low price of potatoes in the first quarter of 2021 with a high harvest in 2020 and a decrease in demand due to the lack of tourists and the shutdown of the HORECA sector. The rich harvest was due to favorable climatic conditions, as well as an increase in the area cultivated with potatoes in 2020. This is indirectly confirmed by a significant increase in imports of seed potatoes.

Source: geostat.ge

The consumer price index for potatoes is also at an all-time low. The indicator for the first quarter of 2021 is 8% lower than the average indicator for the same period of 2015–2020 (95.48) and constitutes 88.27 units. On a monthly basis, March 2021 index is 33% lower than in the same period in 2020.

Source: geostat.ge

Despite 2020 being a good year for potatoes in  Georgia, imports of potatoes were 27% higher as of the end of February 2021 than in the previous season. Moreover, despite the downward trend in prices for potatoes in Georgia, imports increased every month. As can be  seen in the table, the volume of potato imports at the end of February was at record levels over the past three seasons. The main, and the only supplier of potatoes to Georgia during this period was Turkey, where prices for tubers were even lower.

Potato imports will most likely still be lower at the end of the 2020/21 season than in the previous season, because more than 9 thousand tons of potatoes were imported to Georgia in March-May 2020. This was the market’s reaction to the surge in demand, which, in turn, was caused by the panic during the first lockdown, the closure of agricultural markets and low local stocks.

Along with the import of marketable potatoes, the import of seed potatoes also increased significantly in 2020 – by 214% compared to the previous year. This dramatic increase in seed potato imports confirms that farmers planted significantly more tubers than in 2019. However, the imports of seed potatoes are still much lower in the current season. In February 2021, imports of seed potatoes to Georgia were almost three times lower than in the corresponding month of 2020.

Seed potatoes were imported mainly from Germany and the Netherlands both this and last season. However, Turkey has also increased its export of seed potatoes to Georgia.

Despite the difficult year, in a conversation with EastFruit, farmers note that they will continue to grow potatoes in the same volumes, and are not going to reduce production in 2021. Perhaps they have sufficient stocks of seed potatoes of their own production. However, considering dynamics of prices for  potatoes and a decrease in imports of seed potatoes to Georgia, most likely, the area planted with potatoes may still decrease.

The new potato season in Georgia will start in June. Traditionally, farmers from the southern region of Kvemo Kartli will be the first to harvest early open field potatoes. In September, late potatoes from Samtskhe-Javakheti will arrive  on the market, where there are appropriate climatic conditions for growing late potatoes, which ensures consumption in winter and spring.

Although Georgia has not started harvesting potatoes in the open field yet, greenhouse potatoes are already present on the market. According to the results of price monitoring last week, early potatoes cost 4–5 lari ($1.17 -1.47). Last year at this time, there were no commercial lots of early potatoes on the market yet.

Сообщение In Georgia, potato prices hit historic lows, stocks are at record levels, and imports are increasing появились сначала на EastFruit.