Belarus: Gomel Region Builds 2026/27 Off-Season Potato Stabilization Fund, 42% of Plan in Storage
Belarus’s Gomel region has sent more than 3.1 thousand tonnes of potatoes into storage for the state stabilization fund, 42% of the regional plan of 7.6 thousand tonnes, the state news agency BELTA reported on 15 October, citing Elena Filipovich, head of the crop intensification department at the regional agriculture and food committee.
Stabilization funds are Belarus’s core instrument for keeping vegetables on shop shelves through the off-season at state-regulated prices. Under the procedure, district commissions first inspect storage facilities for readiness, and the laying-in of produce must be completed by 15 November, as required by law. Filipovich said products are coming from 20 agricultural organisations and farms in the region, with all vegetables sourced locally; only part of the apple volume, about 1,500 tonnes, will arrive from other regions.
Alongside potatoes, Gomel has laid in 1 thousand tonnes of onions, half of the plan, as well as 320 tonnes of carrots (16%), 370 tonnes of beetroot (26%), 210 tonnes of cabbage (7%) and 700 tonnes of apples against a plan of 3.5 thousand tonnes. Regional officials say all conditions for preserving the produce through the off-season have been put in place.
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The Gomel figures extend a pattern visible across Belarus’s western regions. In the Brest region, authorities reported on 11 October that more than 4.1 thousand tonnes of a planned 6.7 thousand tonnes of potatoes had already been committed to stabilization storage, within a total regional fund of more than 18 thousand tonnes of potatoes, vegetables and apples. Nationwide, the fund builds on last year’s large reserves, when more than 61 thousand tonnes of potatoes were laid in for the 2025/26 off-season.
The 2026/27 campaign is being assembled against a comfortable supply backdrop. Belarus passed 600,000 tonnes of dug potatoes by mid-October with yields running 19 centners per hectare above last year, and the state had already capped off-season potato prices before the harvest was complete. Once the funds are formed, release volumes and retail prices will be regulated by the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade.
What to watch: whether regions close out the laying-in by the 15 November legal deadline, and how the regulator prices stabilization-fund potatoes against free-market offers once off-season trading begins.
Sources: BELTA (Gomel region), 15 October 2026 · EIA.media, 16 October 2026 · BELTA (Brest region) / SB.by, 11 October 2026 · news.by stabilization fund review, December 2025.
