In Ukraine, basic winter vegetables are rapidly becoming more expensive. For example, the price of beets rose by more than 30% in just a week, and onions are already sold for 15 hryvnia (0.47 Euro) per kilo.
Economic expert Alexander Okhrimenko explained in a comment to the site “Segodnya” that this price increase is the result of a lack of storage space for vegetables in Ukraine. According to the expert, this shortage of modern vegetable storage facilities causes most products to simply end up rotting. Consequently, the market supply falls, and prices rise.
"We always have a problem with storage. Even if the harvest is good, we cannot store it. A lot of vegetables are stored using traditional methods. If we built vegetable storage facilities in Ukraine such as those in Poland and Turkey, there would be no problems. We have modern storage facilities, but there are very few of them. Therefore, as soon as there is frost, most vegetables simply rot. There is such a rule: the stronger the frost, the more expensive the vegetables and fruits become," explained Okhrimenko.
But economist Taras Zagorodniy also links the cost of vegetables with the monopolization of the market and the “leveling” of the prices of these products in the global market. "The antimonopoly committee is very lenient towards market monopolization, and there are no price inspections," said Zagorodny.
According to both experts, these factors could cause a further rise of vegetable prices.
Source: segodnya.ua