Farmers who have started digging potatoes are shaking their heads: potato dishes will become more expensive in cafes

Will potatoes be replaced by cereals in Lithuanian cuisine?

The harvest presses the tears

Potatoes, considered the second Lithuanian bread, will no longer be cheaper than mushrooms this winter. Farmers are counting on losing up to half of the expected harvest due to a bad summer and, seeing these trends, representatives of the catering industry are considering how much the prices of potato dishes will have to rise, which are unavoidable in Lithuanian. . kitchen room.

Saulius Račkauskas, a farmer who planted more than 160 hectares of potatoes and onions in the Krekenava Eldership, has already applied in writing to the Department of Agriculture of the Panevėžys District Municipality for a certificate on the damage suffered on the farm. It will try to provide this document to the customers of its products to avoid penalties for breach of the contracts concluded in February.

“I signed orders for the required amount of potatoes with future buyers in the winter. I planned one way and came out of another. I see that I will not keep my promises to buyers in any way,” admits S. Račkauskas, who already harvested early potatoes.

The farmer expected to plant 34 tons of potatoes per hectare this year, as before.

After the dry summer and its rainy end, the yield of S. Račkauskas is half low: only 18 tons per hectare.

“Of course, everyone will say: it’s bad again for the farmers, they moan again and want to peel off the money. I built a professional and certified weather station on my farm. Their data shows that in June rainfall fell 23 mm per km2. m, in July – 36 mm per square kilometer. subway. And comparing the temperature indicators of the last decade, it can be seen that the daily average temperature was 3 degrees higher in those months ”, says the farmer.

Under these conditions, the potatoes, he said, did not feed or grow.

Boiled potatoes

Now S. Račkauskas fixes 146 mm per square M. m of precipitation and it still does not stop raining.

“We dig the latest potatoes, then the newest ones. But you can’t even get into the ground, it’s very wet. The rain again caused bad changes: the second potato growth begins,” says S. Račkauskas.

According to him, when this happens, these vegetables acquire an octagonal shape, they look like adults with two tubers.

This potato is non-standard, substandard, and likely to be rejected by buyers.

For these reasons, the farmer will not be able to sell his product to customers this season at the price expected for February. This, according to S. Račkauskas, will definitely grow both in stores and in markets.

If buyers are outraged by the increase in potato prices, according to the farmer, let them try to grow vegetables that no longer understand the Lithuanian climate and try to become millionaires.

Lower returns this year. S. Račkauskas estimates that these vegetables will be consumed a third less than expected. In addition, its onions and the smallest size, the heads of the highest fraction almost did not grow. This will make it more difficult to sell these types of products – some caterers order very large onions.

Guilty and Belarus

Poor mood this season also on the farms of Milda Mikelionienė, an elderly farmer from Upytė. And for her, the potatoes grew half as much as in a normal year.

“This year is sad for the potato harvest. Although the spring was long and wet, everything sprouted. But in the hot and dry summer, the gardens were simply drained: if a few millimeters of rain fell per square meter, they would immediately evaporate. And now it rains every day ”, the farmer consoled.

For potatoes, this year, according to M. Mikelionienė, is one of the worst in recent years.

According to her, not only Lithuanian farmers but also Polish neighbors live the same way.

The farmer has no doubt that the price of these most popular vegetables will go up, and that is already visible. The price will increase not only because of bad weather, but also for a third of the most expensive potato fertilizers this year.

“The events in Belarus, which is the main supplier of potash fertilizers for potatoes throughout Europe, have tripled our costs. We are forced to raise the price of our products to survive in the market ”, M. Mikelionienė is not hiding.

As far as she knows, the wholesale price of potatoes in supermarkets has now risen to about 35 carats per kilogram. Retail can also cost around 60 carats per kilogram.

“Now the lower price of potatoes is due to the potato producer himself. Later, I have no doubt that they will become even more expensive. But there is a limit: if people can no longer buy potatoes, they will replace them with buckwheat and rice, ”says the farmer.

Other vegetables from his fields (beets, carrots) still have time to grow until late autumn, so M. Mikelionienė does not complain about his harvest.

But to peel the same potatoes offers another rush. According to the farmer, the new Lithuanian fashion of harvesting in late August is not wise. It is best to remove the potato from the ground while it is still fresh in the garden. And as the weather warms up, it lasts until the end of September or October.

“It just came to our knowledge then. They fail to heal the wounds, the warehouses are too hot, so they quickly start to rot and die. It is better to wait until the temperature is 6 degrees on the ground and then store it”, advises the farmer.

Zeppelins are expensive

Bronislava Šveikauskienė, a farmer and owner of a café in Uliūnai, famous for its zeppelins, is already starting to accumulate barrels of potatoes.

“Potatoes are an important vegetable in our business. I grow some of them on my own one-hectare farm, buy some of them. But this year the harvest is pretty bad: potatoes are down. Probably everyone is lamenting” says the businesswoman.

You don’t even doubt that potato dishes in cafes and restaurants will no longer look cheap.

“Last year it was in quarantine, so it is not worth comparing them at all, our activities were almost non-existent. But in 2019, I paid 20 cents per kilogram for potatoes. Now they are twice as expensive and a kilo of large potatoes can cost 50 cents ”, compared B. Šveikauskienė.

She says she’s trying not to change the dishes, weight or prices on her coffee for the third year in a row, but there’s no guarantee visitors won’t be “criminals” this fall.

“Wages are increasing, costs are increasing, so we will not stay in place for long. Now we look forward to September 13, if no one returns to the cafes, something will have to be done. They don’t want to raise prices and getting mad at customers, because sometimes my grandmother even comes from Panevėžys because it’s cheaper. But we also have to survive, “says B. Šveikauskienė.

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