North Cyprus to begin importing potatoes after local price shoots to 140TL

The TRNC is to import 200 tonnes of potatoes on Monday or Tuesday as the price of local potatoes soars to 140TL (€3.89) per kilogram.

‘Agriculture minister’ Huseyin Cavus announced the planned imports on Friday night, but promised that his ‘ministry’ would be cautious in its next steps due to the risk of disease.

“Potatoes are not convenient to import like other products. The rate of diseases which can be carried in potatoes is much higher, especially bugs and warts which can come to our country and put our local products at risk,” he said.

He added, “as someone who worked in this sector before entering politics, I think we should be careful when we bring products to these lands.”

In addition to importing potatoes, he said the north would also bring forward its potato harvest by 20 days, with the aim of increasing the supply in the short term.

According to cost-of-living tracker Numbeo, a per-kilogram price of 140TL would make the north the most expensive place in the world to buy potatoes, beating South Korea, where potatoes cost €3.49 per kilogram, into second place.

Numbeo reports that potatoes cost €1.30 per kilogram in the Republic of Cyprus, with potatoes costing €1.41 per kilogram in the United Kingdom, €1.12 per kilogram in Greece, and just €0.53 per kilogram in Turkey.

The world’s cheapest potatoes are to be found in Pakistan, where Numbeo reports that they cost just €0.36 per kilogram.

The Cyprus Turkish potato producers’ association blamed the retail sector for the high prices, saying, “potato prices have risen to 140TL due to some supermarkets selling potatoes at exorbitant profit rates.”

“The money coming out of consumers’ pockets goes into the pockets of middlemen, not the farmer, who does this job with great difficulty,” they added.

They explained that they had faced “serious losses” during the spring due to an unusually dry winter last year and a fungal disease outbreak among potato crops, leading to a smaller-than-usual harvest.

This problem was then exacerbated over the summer when, the association said, “extreme heat and the necessity of an early harvest due to previous shortcomings meant we once again did not reach the required tonnage.”

“To ensure farmers covered their costs, we set the wholesale price of potatoes at 65TL (€1.80),” they said, saying that the rest of the retail price was tacked on by supermarkets.