Agroholding Continental Farmers Group has started harvesting potatoes in the Ternopil and Lviv regions, where 2,100 hectares are allocated for cultivation, according to the agroholding’s press service.
“Harvesting is already underway in both regions where the company grows crops: in Lviv region, they started with chip potatoes, and in Ternopil region, with early seed varieties. In addition, Continental will also harvest food varieties. In total, the company will harvest tubers from an area of 2.1 thousand hectares this season,” the agricultural holding said, adding that potato harvesting will continue until the end of October.
Continental also said that in 2025, it purchased new machinery and equipment for potato production worth more than EUR 1.85 million. This includes Ukraine’s first self-propelled four-row third-generation potato harvester with a capacity of 460 hp, a trailer-transloader, a receiving hopper, an optical sorter, a potato picker, and equipment for calibrating and storing products.
As reported, Continental allocated 2,130 hectares for potatoes in the 2025 season, of which 60% are chip varieties, 24% are table varieties, and 16% are seed plots. The agricultural holding explained the 13% increase in the area under this crop compared to last year by the growth in demand for table potatoes and additional demand for the production of chip potatoes.
The Mriya agricultural holding and CFG, united under the name Continental Farmers Group, have been operating as a single business since November 2018, when Mriya signed an agreement with international investor Salic UK to sell its assets.
Salic was founded in 2012. Its sole shareholder is the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which invests in agricultural and livestock production.
The agricultural holding Continental Farmers Group has started planting potatoes as part of the spring 2025 sowing campaign, and planting work is underway in fields in Ternopil and Lviv regions, the company’s press service reports.
According to the report, in 2025, 2130 hectares will be allocated for potatoes, of which 60% are chip varieties, 24% are table varieties, and 16% of the area will be occupied by seed plots. Continental explains the partial 13% increase in potato acreage compared to last year, in particular, by the increased demand for table potatoes and additional demand for chip potatoes, which the company works with under a contractual model with guaranteed purchases.
Continental noted that the early spring warming allowed the company to prepare the soil for potatoes in time and enter the planting season optimally.
“The weather conditions so far give us every reason to be optimistic about potatoes this season. If they continue to favor us, we plan to complete planting the main areas by the end of April. Our main goal is to deliver consistently high yields and quality products that our partners and consumers expect. To be confident in our results, we have all the necessary technical and technological resources,” emphasized Konstantin Shityuk, COO of Continental Farmers Group.
The company’s key innovations in potato growing technology this year include the expanded use of precision farming tools and fertilization based on agrochemical analysis. New cultivation protocols were also introduced based on the results of 2024 research to optimize the disease protection scheme.
In total, in 2025, Continental allocated 96 thousand hectares for spring crops and 84.9 thousand hectares for winter rape, wheat and barley.
Mriya Agro Holding and CFG, united under the name Continental Farmers Group, have been operating as a single business since November 2018, when Mriya entered into an agreement with international investor Salic UK to sell its assets.
Salic was founded in 2012. Its sole shareholder is the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which invests in agricultural and livestock production.
On March 11, farms in the Chernivtsi region began planting early potatoes to be grown under agrofibre, the press service of the Chernivtsi Regional Military Administration reported on Facebook.
“Thanks to favorable weather conditions, farms in the Vyzhnytsia region are planting potatoes of the ultra-early Riviera variety, though under agrofibre,” the post reads.
According to the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration, the region’s annual gross production of potatoes is more than 650 thousand tons, and vegetable crops – more than 250 thousand tons. The main producers of vegetables and potatoes in the Chernivtsi region are private households, which account for 99.7% of the total regional crops.
The area of these crops in 2025 will remain at the level of last year, namely 35.9 thousand hectares for potatoes and 14.6 thousand hectares for vegetables and melons.
“Sowing of vegetables and potatoes in the open field in the region will begin in late March and early April,” the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration said.
In Ukraine, prices for potatoes have started to gradually decline, analysts of the EastFruit project report. It should be noted that a week earlier sellers managed to keep selling prices at a fairly high level, but the activity of trade gradually decreased. It became obvious to producers that at the established price level it will be extremely difficult to realize the volumes of potatoes, especially those that are not suitable for further storage, before the onset of frost. As a result, most of them by the middle of this week began to synchronously reduce selling prices, trying to revive the interest of wholesalers to their goods.
Thus, at the moment farmers in the main regions of production are ready to ship quality potatoes at 18-28 UAH/kg ($0.43-0.68/kg), depending on the volume and quality of products offered, which is on average 10% cheaper than at the end of last week.
At the same time, wholesale companies, many of which succumbed to the hype in this segment, and having in stock volumes of expensive potatoes purchased on the external market earlier, are currently selling excessive quantities at a loss.
At the same time, owners of quality potatoes today prefer not to hurry with the realization of available volumes of their products, waiting for the improvement of the price situation in the market. It should be added that under the current conditions, potato prices in the Ukrainian market at the moment are still on average 2.3 times higher than in early November last year.
More detailed information about the development of the market of potatoes and other horticultural products in Ukraine you can get by subscribing to the operative analytical weekly – EastFruit Ukraine Weekly Pro. Detailed information about the product can be found here.
https://east-fruit.com/novosti/v-ukraine-desheveet-kartofel-2/
Demand for food potatoes is growing rapidly in Ukraine, according to analysts of the EastFruit project. Market participants attribute the price increase to the high demand for potatoes from local wholesalers and retailers. At the same time, the excitement in this segment is fueled by rumors of a shortage of quality potatoes this season.
Thus, Ukrainian farmers are currently offering potatoes for sale at 12-18 UAH/kg ($0.29-0.44/kg), which is on average 16% more expensive than at the end of the previous working week.
According to the producers themselves, the growth in sales was also facilitated by the decline in potato production in the country. The abnormal drought this year in the main producing regions has led to a significant decline in potato yields. In addition, unfavorable weather conditions had a negative impact on the quality of potatoes.
It is worth noting that currently the wholesale price of potatoes in Ukraine is on average 2 times higher than in early September 2023. At the same time, many market participants do not expect the weakening of trading activity in this segment in the near future.
You can get more detailed information about the development of the potato and other fruit and vegetable market in Ukraine by subscribing to the operational analytical weekly – EastFruit Ukraine Weekly Pro. More information about the product is available here.
Source: https://east-fruit.com/novosti/ocherednoe-povyshenie-tsen-na-kartofel-v-ukraine/
Record Agro LLC (Kyiv), the official distributor of the German breeding company Europlant, has resumed deliveries of high reproduction potato seeds from Germany to Ukraine, which were forced to stop with the start of the Russian military invasion.
On Tuesday, the website of the profile Ukrainian Association of Potato Producers (UAPC) reported on the import of the first batch of 22 tons of seed potatoes of the Bellarosa, Sanibel, Jeli, Vineta varieties.
“Potato seeds are categorized by the government as critical imports. There are no problems with its supplies. There are no queues at the border and customs,” Yuriy Dyak, director of Record Agro, is quoted in the message.
At the same time, it is specified that Ukrainian farms with the status of elite farms – certified seed enterprises – became the customers of the delivered batch. They will lay seed plantations in Ukraine for the 2023 harvest.
“We will be able to meet the needs of all elite farms in a very short time,” Dyak confirmed.
According to Record-Agro, at the moment the company is the only official importer of potato seeds in Ukraine, while the work of other seed farms is hampered by the military invasion of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation. The importer specified that Ukrainian farms are now growing seed potatoes from high reproductions purchased from European breeding companies in 2021.
As reported, by April 8, Ukraine had sown 1.07 million hectares of land with the main agricultural crops, which is 7.9% of the 13.44 million hectares planned for the current season, including 0.47 million ha. At the same time, 43.2 thousand hectares were sown with potatoes on the indicated date.
