During a recent press conference, Oksana Ruzhenkova, director of the Association of Potato Producers of Ukraine, explained the continued difficulties that have kept Ukrainian potato producers from exporting their products in the past, as well as the profound impact this has had on their business.

According to potatosystem.ru, she recalled that 2018 was a very dry year in the EU, and therefore potato yields were below average. This presented a unique chance for the country to enter the European market, so potato producers appealed to the State Consumer Service of Ukraine with a request to write a letter to the European Commission, asking the export of potatoes to the EU to be allowed, thus ending the 20-year old blockade. A similar letter was sent from Belarus to the EC.

However, the answer to both countries was the same – first to harmonize the national legislation with the European one, and only then will further progress be made. Belarus reacted rather harshly, closing its market for European potatoes. Starting September 1 2019, European seed potatoes ceased to be imported into the country, and a program for the development of their own seed industry was put into place in Belarus. “We were left alone with our problems,” Oksana Ruzhenkova said.

In June 2019, they received a letter from the State Consumer Service, which announced the proposal of the European Commission launch a pilot project which would allow them to enter the EU market.

“We were sent a list of quarantine samples, and assembled a test group of seven farms that were tested on 1,000 hectares of commercial fields. Today we have two farms that are ready to export to the EU, and the rest are in the process,” Oksana Ruzhenkova said, adding that other producers are also preparing to enter the European market.