Statistiek, handel en prijzen

Following a satisfactory experience with exporting potatoes to the United Arab Emirates in recent weeks, several other Gulf states are now lining up to buy the starchy vegetable produced from the farms of the Kurdistan Region

Farmers dumped their potatoes in front of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s agriculture ministry in Erbil on Thursday, protesting banned imports that have pushed their produce out of the market.

Potato production in Kurdistan has seen a 13-fold increase over the last 7 years and is well above domestic demand, allowing export of the surplus. Nevertheless, potatoes have to be imported later in the season, since local potato storage capacity is lacking.

Bernard Quere, the Middle East envoy for the French agricultural agency France Obtention- whose slogan is L'Univers de la pomme de terre - had flown from Paris in November to sell seedlings cultivated by French farmers to Kurdish agriculturalists. By ...