Foreign trade in potatoes in Poland in the season 2020/2021

2021-11-02 11:50

The 2020/2021 season was historic for foreign trade in fresh edible potatoes in Poland. Why will this season go down in history? We write about this below, analysing CSO data on exports and imports of edible potatoes (CN category 070190 - Potatoes, fresh or chilled, excluding seed potatoes).

The export volume of these potatoes in the 2020/2021 season (from July to June) amounted to 101.1 thousand tonnes. This is a very high figure for Polish potato exports. This can be seen in our chart below. You can also see on it that, in parallel, imports of potatoes to Poland have fallen significantly, with a volume of 103.8 thousand tonnes in the 2020/2021 season. Exports increased year-on-year by five and a half times (+451%), while imports fell by nearly two-thirds (-65%).

Own study on the basis of CSO data

However, the situation was slightly different in terms of value. This is because the value of potato exports in the season 2020/2021 amounted to PLN 59.6 million, which resulted in a year-on-year increase by "only" slightly more than twofold (+120%), whereas the drop in the value of imports was comparable to the decline in their volume (-64%).

Of course we have to realise that even 100,000 tonnes of exported potatoes is not much for a country like Poland, one of the leading producers of this vegetable on the continent.

Importantly, Poland's high potato exports in the season in question were only possible thanks to a large deficit in Ukraine, as it was Ukraine that received the bulk of the volume - 85.7 thousand tonnes, i.e. 84.8% of Poland's total exports.

Let us take a look at the export and import of potatoes by month

Own elaboration based on CSO data

The graphs clearly show that it grew from August to March, with a very dynamic increase from December onwards. But only in quantitative terms. In value terms, the trend was much less dynamic. In terms of quantity, potato imports only grew from February onwards, but in terms of value the upward trend was already apparent in September.

Own elaboration based on CSO data

What about foreign potato trade prices in the 2020/2021 season, broken down by month? Here we also have a graph. It shows that imported potatoes are generally more expensive than those exported. In fact, they were much more expensive in the season under discussion from September to November. The peak for imports was in October with a price of PLN 3.33/kg! Exports peaked in June with an average price of 1.70 PLN/kg. The beginning of the season (July and August) and the end of the season (June) brought higher export prices than imports.

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