Roman Nekrasov, director of the crop production department of the Ministry of Agriculture in Russia reportedly said that in the first nine months of 2020, Russia exported 254,800 tons of potatoes (both table and seed), which is almost 36% more than in the same period last year.
Nekrasov is reported as saying that the main buyers of Russia’s seed potatoes are Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Turkmenistan, and Belarus. He also said that table potatoes are currently in demand in the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan.
Nevertheless. while potato imports are declining, they still exceed Russian potato exports. Over the first nine months of 2020, 293,400 tons were imported into Russia (in 2019 the official figure provided is 298,300 tons).
This means that it is necessary to develop the storage capacity of potatoes in all of Russia. At the moment there is enough capacity to store a total of 4,5 million tons per year. According to Roman Nekrasov, by 2025 the country will produce 7,575 million tons of potatoes, and the country will thus reaches self-sufficiency (at least 95%). According to Nekrasov, Russia will be among the the top three potato producers at the time.
Source: Based on a report published by FreshPlaza
