The average wholesale price for potatoes on the Moldovan fruit and vegetable market after a month’s stay at 2.5 MDL/kg ($0.14 per year) returned to the level of the first decade of August – 3 MDL/ kg ($0.17/kg) last week. The maximum prices for quality potatoes increased even more – by 1 MDL/kg to 4 MDL/kg ($0.22/kg).
Participants of the local market confirm the obvious – the driving force of the potato price rise is export. Earlier EastFruit reported that, thanks to the lowest prices in the region, Moldova began exporting potatoes to Russia, Ukraine, Romania, North Macedonia this year. However, according to traders’ estimates, the share of export-quality potatoes does not exceed 20-25% in the structure of the 2021 harvest (which is quite large due to heavy rainfall in spring and summer: about 350-380 thousand tons). The limited supply began to push prices up.
At the same time, the supply of potatoes of medium and low quality for current consumption in the domestic market is still large. As farmers note, such potatoes will not be stored long; in order to avoid losses, they must be sold before the winter cold. Thus, there are no prerequisites for a price increase; nevertheless, it is starting.
Experts of associations of agricultural producers attribute a slight increase in prices for potatoes of mediocre quality to the expectations of local consumers of price increases for all other food products (by the way, it has already begun).
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