Romanians and Dutch buying up Latvian potatoes en masse; deficit a possibility in the spring

RIGA, Dec 12 - At the moment, consumers from the Netherlands and Romania are actively buying up Latvian potatoes en masse for prices that are favorable for Latvian farmers, which means that Latvia could go through a potato deficit in the spring, several major farmsteads informed the business information portal ''Nozare.lv''.

''We have received calls from farmers in Vidzeme and Zemgale who have said that they have sold tons of potatoes to buyers from Romania and the Netherlands, who have arrived with trucks to transport the potatoes back to their respective countries. They are prepared to purchase all the potatoes available from farms and are obviously paying for this in cash,'' the director of the ''Musmaju darzeni'' cooperative, Edite Strazdina, said.

She said that local farmers are being offered good prices for their potatoes - LVL 0.10 per kilogram, while the local buying price is about LVL 0.08 per kilogram.

''If this continues, we will see something similar to what happened several years ago, when Russian buyers bought up local potatoes in Latvia, and we went through a potato shortage in the spring,'' Strazdina added.
leta.lv

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