Latest news with #potatoes
Zawya
19 hours ago
- Business
- Zawya
EU greenlights new law easing potato imports from Egypt
Arab Finance: The European Union (EU) approved new legislation No. 1289/2025 aimed at facilitating import procedures for Egyptian potatoes, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation announced. Mohamed El-Mensy, head of Egypt's Central Administration of Plant Quarantine (CAPQ), said this decision is expected to reduce costs and streamline global access to the Egyptian agricultural exports. El-Mensy added that the new regulation increases the permitted shipment weight and lowers the number of samples required for inspection. This will highly simplify the export procedures of Egyptian potatoes from zones free of brown rot to the EU, which will reduce the costs associated with analyzing samples upon arrival. It is worth noting that Egypt's potato exports exceeded 1.307 million tons for the first time, with the CAPQ exerting efforts to open new markets and ensure the continued flow of exports to countries globally. © 2025 All Rights Reserved Arab Finance For Information Technology Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Zawya
19 hours ago
- Business
- Zawya
Egyptian agricultural exports surpass 6.240mln tons in mid-July: Farouk
Arab Finance: The total volume of Egyptian agricultural exports increased during mid-July 2025, exceeding 6.240 million tons, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Alaa Farouk announced. The recorded load is higher by 575,000 tons when compared to the same period in 2024. Based on data issued by the Central Administration of Plant Quarantine (CAPQ), citrus fruits led the list of Egyptian agricultural exports, with a total amount surpassing 1.9 million tons. Potatoes came in second place, with a quantity exceeding 1.3 million tons, followed by fresh onions with 231,894 tons. Grapes took over the fourth position with 159,477 tons, followed by sweet potatoes with 123,857 tons. The export portfolio included other items, such as beans, mango, garlic, guava, and other Egyptian crops. Farouk cited remarks of Mohamed El-Mensy, head of the CAPQ, noting that Egypt successfully opened eight new export markets for its crops: grapes, pomegranates, mangoes, potatoes, and potato seeds. The administration also entered several new global markets, including South Africa, Costa Rica, Uzbekistan, India, and the Philippines, according to El-Mensy. On July 27 th, the European Union (EU) greenlighted new legislation No. 1289/2025 aimed at facilitating import procedures for Egyptian potatoes. © 2025 All Rights Reserved Arab Finance For Information Technology Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
CTV News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
A starchy surprise: Winnipeg couple discovers cabinet filled with potato tendrils
The cabinet with the bag of potatoes with tendrils growing out of it is pictured on July 25, 2025. (Brian Hood) A Manitoba couple has gone viral after discovering a starchy surprise in one of their cabinets. It all began on Tuesday when Brian and Crystal Hood noticed a small vine sticking out of their china cabinet. At first, they assumed it was just a plant that had gotten stuck, but when they opened the doors, they found something unexpected—a large pile of strands and tendrils growing from a bag of potatoes. Potato video The vine sticking out of the cabinet pictured on July 25, 2025. (Brian Hood) 'Potatoes, when they don't get planted, they try to plant themselves,' Brian explained. 'They start growing these white tentacle-y tendrils out there and send them out into the universe. I guess these potatoes really wanted to find some soil.' It turns out the potatoes had been sitting in the cabinet since October. Brian said he gardens in his backyard, and these were part of last year's harvest that he intended to use as a seed potato for this year's batch. However, things took an unpredictable turn when Brian and Crystal forgot about the bag in the cabinet. 'We had no idea [about the potatoes],' Brian said. 'I guess we don't use that china cabinet very much, I'm starting to realize. It was a complete surprise.' Potato Video The tendrils can be seen growing from the brown paper bag filled with potatoes on July 25, 2025. (Brian Hood) After they made the discovery, the couple opted to make a video showcasing the tentacled taters. Though Brian said he doesn't use Instagram a lot, he decided to post this video because he thought it would make his mom laugh. 'She's probably one of my 50 followers,' he said. 'So that was really all I was hoping to get out of it.' Much to Brian's and Crystal's surprise, the video ended up going viral—garnering one million views and more than 43,000 likes as of Friday. 'It was kind of unbelievable,' Brian said. 'We didn't really know what was going on or why it was going that way, but I guess there's a lot of potato fans out there on the internet.' As for what Brian and Crystal have done with the bag of potatoes, he said it's still in the cabinet while they figure out what to do with it.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Spud-tacular: How India became a french fry superpower
French fries turned around the fortunes of Jitesh Patel. He comes from a family of farmers in Gujarat in the northwest of India. Traditionally they grew cotton, but the returns were poor. Droughts in 2001 and 2002 made the situation worse and the Patels knew things had to change. "We realised that we had to start growing something that does not require lot of water," Mr Patel says. So, they experimented with potatoes. Initially they tried table potatoes; the kind available in local markets and cooked at home, but the returns weren't much better than cotton. Spurred by the arrival of french fry makers in their state, in 2007 they started growing the varieties of potato used by the food industry. It turned out to be a winning strategy. "Since then, no looking back," says Mr Patel. Mr Patel is part of India's rise to potato superpower status. It is already the world's second biggest spud producer. But it's the export market, particularly of french fries, that's really flying. Gujarat has become India's capital of french fry production, home to huge factories churning out chips, including facilities belonging to Canadian giant McCain Foods and India's biggest maker of French Fries, HyFun Foods. From Gujarat fries are sent all over over the world. But the most important markets at the moment are in Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, according to Devendra K, who has been studying the potato market for many years. In February of this year, monthly exports of Indian frozen fries broke the 20,000 tonnes barrier for the first time. In the year to February, India's fry exports totalled 181,773 tonnes, a 45% increase compared with the previous year. The success is partly down to price. "Indian frozen fries are noted for being competitively priced in the international market," says Devendra. He says that in 2024, the average price of Indian fries was even cheaper than those from China. For the french fry makers, it's boom time. "India has emerged as a significant player and exporter due to its abundant agricultural produce, cost-effective manufacturing, and growing focus on quality standards," says Haresh Karamchandani, CEO of HyFun Foods. HyFun has seven plants processing potatoes in Gujarat with another two coming online by 2026. "Urbanisation, increasing disposable incomes and changing lifestyles have promoted the consumption of frozen foods, not only in the household but also in food service establishments," says Mr Karamchandani. Meeting that demand has required decades of innovation from farmers. Jitesh Patel studied agriculture at university and has been applying science to farming ever since. Along with friends and family they are continuously trying to improve their potato yield. "We are a well educated bunch of farmers, so we keep trying new methods," he says. One of their first innovations, back in 2003, was to switch to a drip system of irrigation, rather than flooding fields with water. To keep the soil productive the fields are rested over the summer, and fertilised with cow manure. Their focus now is finding the perfect potato plant. "We are in the process of experimenting with seeds and soon we will have a new variety," he says. Jain Irrigation Systems is a large agricultural technology company. As well as selling irrigation equipment, it has teams of technicians developing seeds for agriculture, including potato plants. They use a set of techniques known as tissue culture. It's a way of cloning plants, with desirable traits and eliminating disease. It involves growing small pieces of plant tissue in a controlled laboratory environment to create virus-free plantlets. These plantlets can then be used to produce more seed potatoes through methods like taking cuttings. "Potato seeds destined for future seed production undergo meticulous breeding practices under the supervision of breeders," says Vijay Singh, vice president of marketing at the company. One issue they are tackling at the moment concerns a variety of potatoes used to make chips. Farmers found that by November the potato crop starts to go brown because of its sugar content. "Companies like us who are into tissue culture are trying to come up with a new variety to overcome the challenges that the industry is facing," says Mr Singh. While Indian farmers are working on improving their yields, investment is needed elsewhere in the frozen food industry. In particular, firms need to be able to store and transport goods at sub-zero temperatures. Modern cold storage facilities have been built, but more are needed. "Only about 10–15% of India's cold storage facilities are suitable for storing frozen foods," says Vijay Kumar Nayak, co-founder of Indo Agri Foods, an exporter of Indian food. "These facilities are unevenly distributed, heavily concentrated in a few states, leaving rural and remote regions severely underserved. Transportation is a problem as well. "There is a notable shortage of specialised refrigerated trucks and containers, making temperature-controlled transportation extremely difficult and increasing the risk of spoilage," he says. A reliable electricity supply is also essential. "Frequent power outages in many parts of the country increase the chances of spoilage and make running a reliable frozen food supply chain a daunting task," says Mr Nayak. "Indian companies face intense competition in export markets from countries like China, Thailand and Brazil. These nations benefit from more advanced logistics, infrastructure, and production systems," he points out. Back at his Gujarat farm Mr Patel is happy that the chip makers moved in. "Gujarat has become a food processing hub. Most of the farmers, including me, have become contract farmers which gives us security and good money for our yield," he says. 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Telegraph
07-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The Russian potato shortage that shows Putin's economy is on the brink
When the last leader of the Soviet Union visited Chequers for lunch with prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, one topic of discussion was potatoes. Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail, claimed Russia had 300 ways of cooking the humble spud, prompting Michael Jopling, Britain's agriculture minister, to express disbelief. She later posted a Russian cookbook to Jopling with the clarification: 'In fact, there are 500, rather than 300, recipes to cook potatoes.' For Vladimir Putin, Russians' appetite for the vegetable has become problematic, however. Shortages have pushed up prices by 167pc over the past year, the biggest rise of any food. 'It turns out that we don't have enough potatoes,' Putin admitted during a televised meeting in May, adding: 'I spoke with [Belarusian leader] Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. He said, 'We've already sold everything to Russia.'' Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made Russia the world's most sanctioned country, eagle-eyed economists have watched closely for signs of economic damage which have proved remarkably elusive. But now surging food prices and labour shortages are keeping inflation high, driving big cracks in the economy. 'We're basically already on the brink of falling into a recession,' economy minister Maxim Reshetnikov told a conference recently. Could Russia's well-oiled war machine be running out of steam? The strain is definitely starting to show, says Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. 'Slowing economic growth coupled with high inflation leaves Russia close to stagflation,' says Prokopenko, a former adviser at Russia's central bank. It means Putin is vulnerable. Further falls in oil prices or a tightening of sanctions can now inflict far greater harm than they did previously, Prokopenko warns. 'None the less, we are not quite there yet,' she cautions. Another economist at a European bank, who didn't want to be named, said the waters were still muddied when it came to Russia's economy. 'The momentum is much slower than it used to be. If we look at the deficit, it has been widening. That suggests that despite the fiscal support, which is most likely aimed at military-related areas, the Russian economy is clearly not as robust as it used to be,' they said. In other words, Putin's war economy is likely at capacity: 'The potential to draw more people into the army and military production has been used. There is a limit to how many shifts people can work in factories, producing munitions and military uniforms.' As a result, inflation was running high at 9.9pc in May, fuelled by billions of roubles ploughed into the war effort, worker shortages and other price pressures. To quell it, interest rates are at 20pc, even after a one percentage point cut in June. 'The financial resources are not endless. The central bank, which maintains some sort of independence, has to maintain a very restrictive monetary policy. That lowers the availability of finance for the rest of the economy,' the economist adds. Still, experts caution against concluding this means all Russians must be struggling. Unemployment is hovering around record lows, high interest rates are boosting savings and mortgage borrowers are to some extent shielded. Wages have also surged. 'Yes, inflation has been high in the last three years, but nominal incomes have been growing much faster, therefore the average real wage actually increased quite substantially. I travel to Russia quite often, and there doesn't seem to be any discontent which is about to bubble to the surface,' says Tatiana Orlova, from Oxford Economics. She believes the economy minister's warning of recession was an attempt to cajole the central bank into cutting rates further – a more underhanded attempt than Donald Trump's frequent angry social media outbursts against Jerome Powell, the US Federal Reserve chief. She says that people in some sectors – teachers, doctors and others – will probably feel worse off because of high inflation. But the war has also created a big class of winners in poor towns across Russia. 'The families who are affected by the war because someone has joined the contractual army, for example, are using it as a social lift. The government is paying very high bonuses equivalent to between $20,000 [£14,600] and $35,000 just for signing up,' Orlova says. 'Those fighters are also receiving monthly wages, which are quite above average. So the families are suddenly able to afford more things. They can make a down payment for a new flat or buy a new car. It's a weird paradox that the war actually brought prosperity to families at this horrible cost,' she adds. This is echoed by the other economists who study the Russian economy. The country is experiencing the slow-burn effect of sanctions, but with very different impacts across the population. 'It's important to understand that the Russian households are not poor. The situation is far from catastrophic. The mood from now on will likely deteriorate because of the lack of new stimulus. These are the longer-term consequences of everything that the Russian government put upon itself in 2022,' said another economist. 'The politically liberal middle class that was formed in the early 2000s, which was mostly employed in the private sector, left the country in response to Putin's war. Since 2022, the new middle class has emerged among those beneficiaries [from the war], and they have been upscaling their consumption patterns,' they add. And this brings us back to potatoes. Prices of the beloved vegetable have surged because of poor harvests have reduced supply. They have only just started easing slightly. Bellwether of household finances Any sign of heightened popularity is worth watching: 'Potatoes are a Giffen good. That means if household wealth is going down, then some lower quality products such as potatoes see increasing demand,' the economist says. In other words, if people feel poorer they typically buy more potatoes, making it an unusual bellwether of household finances in a country with sparse reliable data. But says Andrey Sizov, a Russian commodity expert, other food types like butter, eggs and meat have also become much costlier after shortages. This may in fact reflect people trading up from potatoes. 'My speculation is that supply went down, and actually demand went down a little bit. Potatoes are not an expensive food. In the previous two years, it was first of all poor Russians who were making more money. So they could consume something else – less potatoes, more meat and butter, for example,' Sizov says. The humble spud's mixed signals underline that even as Russia's economy has lost momentum, some are feeling the gain and others the pain. But with the longer running toll from sanctions mounting and a costly war nearing its fourth anniversary, Putin has few options to trigger another growth spurt. 'The central bank could cut interest rates. But that would risk another surge in inflation. Another option is for the government to increase spending, but this is also more likely to increase prices than stimulate growth,' says Prokopenko, the former central bank adviser. 'Protectionism is yet another option. But this only works at the expense of consumers. In other words, it is ordinary Russians who will feel the consequences – through either increased prices, falling income, or less choice on the shelves,' she adds. Will the economic strain matter to Putin? He has been emboldened by a friendlier regime in the US under Trump administration, which has just paused some arms shipments to Kyiv. 'I do not see that the finances are at breaking point. This could go on for years,' warns Orlova. 'In Russia, people have very low expectations. They expect their life to be hard. They expect to always fight and find new ways of surviving. So it's just life as usual. When the population has very low expectations, it actually helps those who rule the country to do whatever they want,' she adds.
