And in Moldova, the average wholesale price for potatoes has not changed since September – about 4.5 lei/kg.
In the neighboring country, as Kommersant Ukrainski writes with reference to an interview on its YouTube channel with Olga Samoylichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Potato Producers Association, the price of potatoes is under pressure from high yields and record low prices for European potatoes. According to the quoted source, “European prices are now lower by 3-5 hryvnias/kg compared to Ukrainian prices, so domestic farmers have to compete with imports”.
Moldovan potato growers do not have to compete with anyone. The Moldovan potato market (and other daily consumption root crops) is protected by expensive transportation logistics. As market operators note, even taking into account the fact that potatoes in Ukraine are a third cheaper, and in Poland and Belarus – twice cheaper than in Moldova, it is not economically viable to bring this inexpensive but bulky commodity from afar.
At the same time, as Logos Press reported earlier, Moldova also has a high harvest of potatoes. Its local production this year, according to estimates, exceeded 200 thousand tons. Of this volume, at least two thirds can be categorized as marketable potatoes. According to traders’ estimates, at least until the end of February the country can make do with its own stocks of this product, there is no need for imports to saturate the market. In conditions of balanced supply and demand, the price is limited only by the level of solvency of the average consumer.
Usually, the first snow for the fruit and vegetable market of Moldova means a new round of prices for basic products. However, this year farmers’ possibilities to play on the “weather factor” in order to increase purchase prices are extremely limited. In store retail, potato prices, although more than twice as high as in wholesale markets, have stabilized in line with prices in urban retail markets since September. The potato assortment in many supermarkets has been reduced to two items – white and pink potatoes in bulk in trays. Expensive imported potatoes in branded packaging are a vanishing rarity. But there is a chance that under the influence of bad weather, ordinary potatoes in stores will not rise in price.
