Potato harvest in Armenia increases to 210.000 tonnes

As of September 5, Armenian farmers had harvested 210,000 metric tons of potato - 40,000 tons more than the year before, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. The land used for potato cultivation increased this year by 771 hectares to a total of 34,077 hectares.

The ministry also criticised farmers in Lori and Shirak regions for suspending sales of potato due to lower prices.

‘We consider this decision unreasonable, because the demand will be satisfied by potato growing farmers from other regions of the country and besides, their decision may prompt an increase in imports which is not desirable,’ the ministry said in a press release.

For many years the supply of potato has been larger than the demand making the country self-sufficient in the commodity.

This year, given the fact that the harvesting of early varieties of potatoes was delayed by about 20 days due to adverse weather conditions, from March 1 to May 31, some 3,392 tons of potato was imported into Armenia.

The ministry said also that every year it imports the seeds of the best European potato varieties. As of June 10 this year, it had brought 3,174 tons of such seeds.