Ukraine has all the chances to become the world potato growing leader. As Head of the APK-Inform project Andriy Yarmak told the Third International conference-exhibition named Potato and Vegetables of Ukraine 2011, held in Lviv (the country's west), now Ukraine exports the record volume of potato to Russia and other countries.

Business has great perspectives, since the prime cost of the "second bread" is twofold and threefold less against the wholesale prices for the product, the expert notes. However, its production requires considerably larger capital investments, since its efficiency directly depends on the production scale.

In addition to potato growers from all Ukrainian regions, experts arrived to Lviv from Poland, Moldova, the Czech Republic and Holland. Participants in the conference discussed the problems in the sector, in particular, at what expense to cover potato and vegetables deficit in H1 of the year and what to do with their excess in H2.

The Ukrainian Association of Potato Producers is called to be a new landmark in development of fruit-vegetable business, its presentation took place at the conference.

As UKRINFORM reported, export of Ukrainian potato in H1 of 2010/2011 season appeared to be a record-making over the whole history. In particular, in July-December 2010, the previous year index has been exceeded 11 fold.

In January, Ukraine exported almost 4,000 tons of potato to Russia, whereas over the whole year of 2010 - slightly more than 6,000 tons.

According to the State Statistics Service, Ukraine in 2010 gathered 8.122 million tons of vegetables, which is 2.6% less against 2009, and 18.7 million tons of potato - 4.9% down.

UKRINFORM