Context: The Ministry of Agriculture and Food announced that the area dedicated to potato planting in Belarus will increase by a third in 2026: from 17,000 to 22,000 hectares. This is due to the potato shortage in stores last year. A year ago, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food promised to allocate more land for potato cultivation. However, this did not happen. According to Belstat, the designated area for potatoes remained unchanged. In a recent statement, the Ministry’s press service reiterated its promises from last year. There are currently 17,000 hectares of potato fields, and this number will increase by 5,000.
On May 11, 2026, the First Information TV Channel (News.by, owned by Belteleradiocompany) reported that “potato prices in Europe had soared by 800%.”
“Europe is on the brink of a food crisis. Due to fertilizer shortages and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, the price of potatoes has increased eightfold. The fuel crisis further complicates the situation. Farms are being hit by expensive fuel and raw material shortages. The forecasts are grim. Meat and milk prices will inevitably rise following potatoes.”
While potatoes have indeed increased in price in Europe, the growth has not been eightfold for shoppers in stores. The First Information TV Channel report authors omitted a key detail: the information concerned exchange-traded prices, not retail prices. On the exchange market, the price increased from approximately €2 to €18.5. This price is per 100 kilograms of potatoes, not per kilogram. At first glance, the growth appears dramatic. However, when we look at the cost per kilogram, the difference is less striking. Earlier, at the European exchange market, one kilogram of potatoes cost about €0.02 — roughly 0.07 Belarusian rubles. The going rate is now about 0.60 rubles. This does not seem like the start of a food crisis.
The sharp increase was caused by a low base effect: a year earlier, Europe had seen a record potato harvest. The oversupply of potatoes has driven prices down. The price of feed potatoes even dropped below zero.
The exchange-traded price of potatoes fell to its lowest level in five years by April 2026. Amid speculation surrounding the war in Iran, the price rose to €18 per 100 kilograms over the past month. However, even after that, the growth does not appear to be unprecedented. The price of 100 kilograms of potatoes was about €35 at the start of 2025, which is roughly double what they cost now. In May 2023, the price had reached around €50, which was nearly three times the current price.
The thesis of a sharp price rise driven by a crisis is not supported by retail prices. For example, at the time of publication, a kilogram of potatoes sold for about €0.45 in Poland, prices in France started at €0.70, and in Germany potatoes could be bought for just under €1..
For comparison, potatoes on E-dostavka in Belarus cost from €0.30 per kilogram.
Thus, the First Information TV Channel presented the rebound in exchange -traded prices following a sharp decline as evidence of a food crisis in Europe. However, retail potato prices do not support this conclusion.
