Lukashenka Loses ‘Potato Battle’

Andrei Branisheuski
22.04.2025, 13:11
19,422

Now Belarusian potatoes are like Schrödinger's cat.

After the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of Trade and the government, the invisible stars of the Belarusian propaganda entered the great potato battle. The government adopts resolutions, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food takes inventory of its stocks, the Ministry of Trade checks shops, and the propaganda explains that potatoes are available in Belarus. You just have to know how to look for it. However, it doesn't make the amount of potatoes bigger.

Don't Panic

However, there is no unity on the potato issue neither among Belarusian officials, nor among propagandists. Apparently, potatoes have turned into a product too vague to have any definite position on it.

On Thursday, for example, enemy insinuations about potato deficit were ridiculed by propagandists Azaronak and Kazakou. Azaronak subtly joked that the potato shortage can be seen only from Poland, and Kazakou explained that he had seen queues in the shops only for meat. But he had never seen queues for potatoes.

On the other hand, Azaronak's home channel, STV, aired a big story about the potato shortage a fortnight ago. And already then the buyers were complaining about prices, assortment and quality.

Two weeks later, the quality has not improved. But not every shop has something to complain about. I mean that not every shop offers potatoes in principle. The search for decent potatoes, cabbage, and now onions has become a separate trend in the Belarusian segment of TikTok.

Therefore, although there is no shortage of potatoes in Belarus, can't be and is not expected, the government has increased the selling prices of potatoes from April 17. As well as for onions and cabbage. Because onions and cabbage have gone in the same direction, in which potatoes went earlier.

‘The government has taken prompt measures to address the situation that has arisen due to price disparity with other countries,’ said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Trade Darja Palazkova on Thursday.

At the same time, she assured that there's no need to worry. There is nothing to worry about. Because the storages are filled with vegetable stocks in full compliance with the staff schedule. The representative of the Ministry of Trade did not specify why warehouses filled to the top with potatoes are in one space-time continuum and shops in another.

You Were Warned

In fact, there's no mystery about where the Belarusian potatoes have gone. It's just that if you put more people in jail and plant less potatoes, both people and potatoes will start to disappear.

Last year's potato harvest, and at the same time the reputation, was undermined by the decree on price regulation. It's just that potatoes and most of the other vegetables in Belarus are mainly grown by farmers. And farmers, unlike collective farms, can't expect the state to cover their losses with gratuitous subsidies.

And since it became unprofitable to grow potatoes due to price regulation, farmers sowed less potatoes last year. In Hrodna region, for example, the area sown for potatoes decreased by 20 per cent. As a result, 900 thousand tonnes of potatoes were harvested last year, although the year before it was more than a million.

However, even 900 thousand tonnes would have been enough. If it were not for the great crop failure in neighbouring Russia. Because of this, potato prices in Russia rose by 30 per cent and Belarusian potatoes appeared on the Russian market before the Belarusian authorities had time to come to their senses.

And when they did, it was too late. Potato storages full of potatoes remained only in the imagination of the Belarusian propaganda. Now Belarusian potatoes are like Schrodinger's cat. They can be eaten only if one does not look under the lid.

Andrei Branisheuski, planbmedia.io

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Lukashenka Loses ‘Potato Battle’

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