Potato Yields in Lviv Region Drop by Almost a Quarter Due to Heat

In the industrial sector of the Lviv region, potato yields dropped by 9.6 t/ha (almost 24%) this year to 30.79 t/ha. The main reason for the significant shortfall in the harvest was prolonged high temperatures during the growing season.

As of October 23, agricultural enterprises in the region had already harvested 84.9 thousand tons of potatoes from an area of 2.8 thousand hectares, which is 73% of the planted area. Professional farms still have 1 thousand hectares left to harvest.

Overall, farms of all categories in the region collected 1,253.5 thousand tons of potatoes from an area of 76.3 thousand hectares, exceeding 98% of the total 77.3 thousand hectares. The average yield in the region stands at 16.4 t/ha, which is 2.36 t/ha lower than last year's figure.

More than 95% of the potato acreage in the region remains concentrated in household plots, while professional producers account for only 5%. The largest industrial growing areas are concentrated in the Lviv district, exceeding 2.8 thousand hectares, which makes up 68% of all potato areas belonging to agricultural enterprises in the region.

Despite the overall decline in productivity, the highest yields among agricultural enterprises were recorded in the Sambir (36.6 t/ha) and Lviv (30.9 t/ha) districts. Lyudmila Honcharenko, director of the agro-industrial development department at the Lviv Regional State Administration, stated that the expected total harvest of about 1,300 thousand tons will fully cover the consumer needs of the population, seed funds, animal feed, and processing requirements.