Despite good harvest of potatoes, Kazakhstan limits exports to Russia and Belarus

The new head of the Union, Baizhan Ualkhanov, told the “APK News” agency about the results of the year and plans for the new season. According to him, Kazakhstan’s potato growers are ending the year with a good harvest, unlike in 2023. In many regions they managed to harvest and store about 1 million tons of potatoes and storable vegetables.

“This volume allows maintaining the wholesale price from producers’ warehouses at the level of 120-160 tenge (US $0.23-0.31) per kg depending on logistics. Traditionally, stocks of potatoes and storable vegetables are concentrated in the Pavlodar, Kostanay, Karaganda, and Akmola regions. We can optimistically expect that these stocks will allow the population to see no significant price fluctuations until the for early potato harvest from the southern regions arrives to the market,” he noted.

Speaking about export markets, the head of the Association noted that there was strong and stable demand. Moreover, there is an increase in export demand for chips and french-fry varieties, which he considered to be an important marker for the 2025 planting season.

Traditional export markets for Kazakhstani potatoes are Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. However, there are already requests for large shipments to Russia and even Belarus, but mainly for seed potatoes as well as industrial potatoes. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is deliberately limiting exports there.

“This is done to not lose our main stable partners. We understand that Russia and Belarus are temporary markets. Also, based on obligations to the Ministry of Agriculture we need to ensure that the domestic market is well supplied,” said B. Ualkhanov.