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Volga Baikal AGRO News Update on Russian Agriculture: Potato Production Expected to Decrease in 2020 !!!
Potato production is expected to decrease in Russia this year. The quality is going down too because of the poor weather conditions.
The potato harvest in the commercial sector is expected to be lower this year than in 2019, since agricultural companies and farms have reduced plantings by 20 thousand hectares. “Even if the yield turns out to be the average annual, the gross yield will be lower by about 0.5 million tons and will amount to about 7-7.1 million tons,” – predicts Aleksey Krasilnikov, executive director of the Potato Union. At the same time, in most regions, a drop in yields is noted, with the exception of early potato growers in the south, where irrigation is used.
The weather conditions during the entire growing season were rather difficult: a prolonged cold spring somewhere was replaced by abnormally high temperatures, somewhere an abnormally large amount of precipitation fell. “All this had a negative impact on the yield, and many farmers from the Center and part of the Volga region note that the potato peel has not yet matured,” – Krasilnikov told to Agroinvestor. “The potatoes that are being harvested now are not in optimal shape for storing them for long-term off-season storage, mostly they are being sold and processed.”
In addition, due to the sharp changes in summer temperatures, growers have a lot of small caliber potatoes this year. The Potato Union discussed the situation with retail chains and asked to introduce an additional gradation so that retailers would take such products for sale.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture data, as of October 02, potatoes have been harvested from the area of 200.6 thousand hectares, or about 71% of the area, about 4.7 million tons have been dug up, which is 332 thousand tons less than a year earlier. The average yield is 236.5 c / ha – 18.3 c / ha and it is lower than the last year.
Now the price of unwashed potatoes is higher compared to the last year. Krasilnikov recalls that in 2019, due to a good harvest in August – early September, there was a significant decrease in wholesale prices, this season this trend is not observed. “Although the price of early potatoes decreased slightly during this period, in the last three weeks it has stabilized and even started to rise,” – he notes. – Now the price for agricultural producers, depending on the quality and region, varies from 10 rubles / kg to 14 rubles / kg and more.”
