Since mid-December, garlic prices on Ukrainian store shelves have steadily reached the UAH 200 per kg mark. In hryvnia terms, this is an absolute record. This was written by EastFruit, reports UNN.
Even during the pandemic, this vegetable was cheaper because before the war it was grown in large fields in some places.
Ukraine doesn't have sufficient stocks of it, and imports of high-quality garlic are too expensive.
It is noted that garlic has risen in price due to several factors. First, demand for it has increased in Europe. Experts attribute this to an increase in the number of emigrants from countries where garlic is an important part of the national cuisine.
In Europe, prices are 1.5 times more expensive. In German and Austrian supermarkets, the average price is about 6 euros, although there are cases with sky-high prices of almost 20 euros per kilogram.
Secondly, there is not enough garlic for everyone - supply lags behind demand. The main producer of garlic in the EU is Spain.
European suppliers have already exhausted their quotas for importing Chinese garlic to the EU. So now it is imported with fines - 1200 euros per ton. So the price is rising, but people are still buying garlic.
According to the State Statistics Service, in the four years since 2020, the area under garlic in Ukraine has decreased by almost 15% to 21,000 hectares. Almost all of it is grown by small and family farms. Wholesalers do not rule out the possibility that official statistics exaggerate the area under cultivation.
The main problem with growing garlic is the need to hire a large number of workers. Over the past five years, no equipment for mechanization of garlic cultivation has been imported to Ukraine - not a single seeder, calibrator, harvester, analysts add.
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