We can be left without vegetables: how high gas prices hit producers in Ukraine

In Ukraine, there are problems with the supply of its own vegetables to the market due to high prices for energy resources, including gas.

This was stated by a member of the Economic Club Oleg Pendzin in an exclusive commentary on “Segodnya”.

According to the expert, prices for non-residential consumers per cubic meter of gas are very different from consumer prices, so maintenance of greenhouses for growing fresh vegetables out of season becomes extremely expensive.

Because of this, many Ukrainian greenhouses are closed and Ukraine is forced to import vegetables, including from the Russian Federation and Turkey.

“If we are talking about the Russian Federation, their domestic market is extremely cheap in terms of energy resources, and based on this, the cost of all greenhouse vegetables is much cheaper in comparison with Ukrainian vegetables. Everything depends on the cost of the energy carrier,” says the economist.

Why does Ukraine import meat and cheese from Europe?

Earlier, the expert said that Ukraine significantly increased the volume of imports of cheese and dairy products from the European Union, and also began to import pork and lard.

According to Pendzin, this situation has arisen due to a drop in livestock numbers and a decrease in demand for dairy products.

Domestic producers simply cannot compete with European ones, although they import cheeses of not the best quality.

Segodny also wrote that natural gas prices in Europe skyrocketed.

Earlier we wrote how the gas crisis in Europe could hit the payment systems of Ukrainians.