Despite the war entering its 1325th day early October 2025, Ukraine has seen its potato yields return to average while prices collapse.
According to the Scottish Farmer, weekly prices of table potatoes are $100 down to $185-200 a tonne but still above 2024’s rates.
Because of a quality hit from a few weeks of drought and fusarium wilt, some exporters are shipping 2024 reserves at losses. The premium shipping price was 12-24 hryvnia ($0.28-0.58) a kg or 12% below those of the week ending October 3.
Still, the weekly slip in pricing has not impacted year-on-year potato rates which are 25% above those of 2024.
Thus the blame for the dip is decreasing demand in domestic wholesale and retail grocers across the country.
Analysts expect the price situation to worsen with ebbing quality 2024 reserves, forcing market saturation with this year’s low quality surplus.
Potatoes had had stable prices before October 7 at 12 hryvnia ($0.28) a kg despite other vegetables experiencing inflation, per Finway UA.
Conversely, tomatoes led the vegetable rate hike with weekly rises of 5-7 hryvnia ($0.12-0.16) to a maximum 60 hryvnia ($1.45) a kg.
Yield and Quality memory Lane
Through the 1990s, Ukraine sustained a constant production of potatoes at between 16 and 21 million tonnes.
The output ebbed somewhat in the early war years 2022-24, before recovering currently in 2025.
Central Ukraine with its good soils for the tuber has particularly come back in the black, which is also true of most other areas.
The only issue is quality despite the motto “quality counts” having been the slogan for growers in the great ‘90s years.
In July 2025, some 100 mm of rain poured over dry fields, drenching the crop and fostering crack and fusarium conditions.
The country has almost finished reaping its high-quality potato crop and is harvesting low-quality ones as the 2024 stock depletes. As such, the highlights below recap the production history in Ukraine with a review on potato prices.
Ukraine Potato Prices and Production Statistics
Ukraine is the world’s third largest potato-producing nation with output at nearly 20.9 million tonnes, as of 2022, behind India and China. Each autumn, the Eastern European harvests an average 21 million tonnes of the tuber, which in turn impacts rates. In 2024, production dipped by 4 million tonnes from 2023’s 21.36 million tonnes, upon which prices hiked to 50 hryvnia ($1.20) a kg. A year later in early October 2025, the reverse was true: yields were up but prices conversely down to maximum 24 hryvnia ($0.57) a kg, as of October 10.
How do Ukraine’s retail potato rates compare worldwide?
By virtue of being a major producer, Ukraine’s potatoes sell far less than the global average. According to data aggregator Numbeo, potatoes average $0.72 a kg in Ukraine or the 103rd position among 127 nations. In comparison, Iceland sells the same kg at $3.71.
Was Ukraine’s potato production constant over time?
From 1984 through the 1990s and in to the early 2020s, Ukraine has maintained near-similar potato production. The below table courtesy of the FAOSTAT illuminates:
| Year | Production [tonnes] |
| 2023 | 21,358,630 |
| 2022 | 20,899,210 |
| 2021 | 21,356,320 |
| 1994 | 16,102,000 |
| 1993 | 21,009,000 |
| 1992 | 20,276,816 |
Did the potato acreage in Ukraine change much over the years ?
From 1.527 million hectares (ha) in 1994 to 1.21 million ha in 2023, Ukraine’s potato acreage has diminished since the early 1990s. However, the dip in the early 2020s has exacerbated from the war with Russia. Beforehand in the early 1990s, the acreage gap was even bigger: for example in 1992, there were over 1.705 million ha under the tuber nationally, which slashed to 1.52 million ha in 1993.