Belarus: state caps potato prices for the 2026/27 off-season before the harvest is known

Belarus has fixed the maximum price at which potatoes can be sold into its state procurement programme for the coming winter — a decision taken while only a tenth of the crop was out of the ground.

Resolution No. 72, issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food on 8 September 2026 and agreed with the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, sets ceiling prices for six fruit and vegetable lines from the 2026 crop: potatoes, table beetroot, carrots, white cabbage, onions and apples. It took effect on 1 September and supersedes Resolution No. 93 of 29 September 2025.

For potatoes, carrots and beetroot the ceilings apply from 15 November 2026 to 31 May 2027. For cabbage, onions and apples the window closes a month earlier, on 30 April 2027. Both intervals match the definition of the off-season written into Belarusian law.

Four prices, not a range

Reports of the resolution have described potato prices as falling within a band of BYN 0.66–0.74 per kilogram. That is misleading. The figures are four discrete prices covering four transaction types, separated on two axes: whether the price includes storage costs, and whether it includes delivery. All prices exclude VAT.

Line	Sale to legal entities under the state order (excl. storage)	Same, incl. delivery	Supply to procurement agents (incl. storage)	Same, incl. delivery
Potatoes	0.66	0.69	0.71	0.74
Table beetroot	0.69	0.72	0.78	0.82
Carrots	0.78	0.82	0.90	n/a
White cabbage	0.98	1.03	n/a	n/a
Onions	1.05	1.10	n/a	n/a
Apples	2.73	2.86	n/a	n/a

BYN per kilogram, excluding VAT. Gaps mark lines for which the storage-inclusive tier has not been reported in full; some outlets have given an upper cabbage figure of BYN 1.11–1.13, and the discrepancy is unresolved.

At the National Bank of Belarus rate of 11 September (USD 1 = BYN 3.0197), the potato ceiling including storage and delivery works out at roughly USD 245 per tonne, or about EUR 211. The storage-exclusive tier equates to some USD 219 per tonne.

Year on year, the increase is modest. Under the superseded Resolution No. 93 the storage-inclusive potato price was BYN 0.68 (0.71 with delivery), so the new ceiling represents an uplift of three kopecks, or about 4.4 per cent. Beetroot and carrots were raised by the same three kopecks, cabbage and onions by four to five, apples by 13 to 15.

The retail leg follows separately. The antimonopoly ministry sets maximum shelf prices for produce drawn from the state stabilisation funds, alongside a cap on the trade margin. For the 2025/26 off-season that ceiling was BYN 1.07 per kilogram for potatoes with a maximum mark-up of 30 per cent.

A tenth of the area lifted

The pricing framework was closed before the size of the crop was established. Ministry operational data to 7 September put potato harvesting at 10 per cent of planned area, with 78,000 tonnes lifted at an average yield of 35.6 tonnes per hectare. By region: Mogilev 32,000 tonnes, Brest 16,000, Minsk 11,000, Gomel 9,000, Vitebsk 6,000 and Grodno 4,000.

That yield figure should be treated with caution. Early lifting typically favours earlier varieties and the better fields, and the season average usually settles below the opening number. Even so, a straight extrapolation is instructive: holding the current yield across the full planned area implies a harvest of roughly 780,000 tonnes from agricultural organisations and farm enterprises, close to the planning target of the previous season. This calculation is editorial and does not appear in the source reporting.

Storage valued at five kopecks

The most revealing number in the resolution is not a price but a gap. The difference between the storage-exclusive and storage-inclusive potato tiers is five kopecks per kilogram — about 7.6 per cent — which values the storage of ware potatoes from 15 November to 31 May at BYN 50 per tonne for the entire period, or roughly USD 2.55 per tonne per month.

That figure was set in September and is not revisited against outturn. If yields across the remaining 90 per cent of the area fall short, if storage losses run high, or if energy costs for climate control rise over the winter, the difference sits with growers and procurement agents. The resolution contains no indexation mechanism inside the regulated window.

The export question turns on licensing, not price

It is tempting to read the ceiling as something that will detach Belarusian volume from winter trade with Russia. The mechanism is different. Resolution No. 72 governs only ex-works prices under the state order; export transactions fall outside it, and the document restricts nothing directly.

Any restriction would arrive through a separate instrument. Belarus has twice imposed export licensing on potatoes (HS 0701 90) in recent seasons: by Council of Ministers Resolution No. 949 of 11 December 2024, running from 17 December 2024 to 13 March 2025, and by Resolution No. 171 of 25 March 2025, running from 27 March to 26 June 2025. In both cases shipments required single-use licences from the antimonopoly ministry, cleared with the agriculture ministry and regional authorities, with the stated rationale being control over stocks against high prices abroad. Whether an equivalent measure is currently in force could not be confirmed from open sources.

The commercial incentive for such a step is forming now. Russian farm-gate potato prices stood at RUB 26.3 per kilogram in early September — approximately USD 313 per tonne — having fallen 12.3 per cent over the month under harvest pressure, and they conventionally firm through the winter. The Belarusian ceiling therefore sits roughly a fifth below the current Russian farm-gate level before the seasonal rise. The comparison is approximate: VAT treatment and delivery terms are not fully aligned between the two reporting systems.

A gap in favour of the Russian market implies that, absent restriction, volume leaves the country and the stabilisation funds fill with difficulty. The quantities at stake domestically are small. For the 2024/25 off-season the funds held 46,910 tonnes of potatoes, around 6 per cent of output from agricultural organisations and farm enterprises, within a total of 121,800 tonnes of fruit and vegetables. Belarusian potato exports in 2024, by comparison, reached 285,200 tonnes.

What remains open

Three variables will determine whether the fixed price holds. The first is final yield, which will not be clear before October. The second is the actual cost of storage over the 2026/27 winter measured against the five kopecks allowed for it. The third is the government’s position on the export regime — a decision taken in December in one recent season and in March in the next, in both cases only once the gap with external prices had become plain.

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Sources: BELTA (Ministry of Agriculture and Food press service, 7 and 11 September 2026); Ministry of Agriculture and Food Resolutions No. 72 of 08.09.2026 and No. 93 of 29.09.2025; Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade Resolution No. 58 of 28.08.2025; Council of Ministers Resolutions No. 949 of 11.12.2024 and No. 171 of 25.03.2025; Presidential Decree No. 232 and Council of Ministers Resolution No. 399; National Bank of the Republic of Belarus and Central Bank of Russia (exchange rates); Russian Ministry of Agriculture and Rosstat (producer prices).