Households Produce Around 80% of Ukraine’s Raspberries

This estimate was provided by Taras Andriichuk, Chairman of the Board of the Faina Poliana berry cooperative in Ternopil Region, in a comment to Ekonomichna Pravda.

«The berries are harvested by the households themselves, without hired workers. The remaining 20% is produced by farmers with 2–5 hectares who hire pickers,» he noted.

According to the State Statistics Service, Ukraine harvested only 30.6 thousand tonnes of raspberries and blackberries in 2025. At the same time, in the 2025/26 season, the country exported 63.3 thousand tonnes of frozen raspberries to the European Union worth €250.8 million.

Taras Andriichuk believes that the gap between production and export statistics does not necessarily represent the «shadow economy». Rather, it reflects a large invisible economy of rural households.

He noted that income earned by rural residents from raspberry sales does not appear in any reporting — and this is entirely legal. The Tax Code exempts sales of own-grown produce from personal income tax and the military levy if the land plot does not exceed 2 hectares.

According to the expert, this year intermediaries are buying fresh raspberries directly from households at an average price of UAH 165/kg. Last year, the price ranged from UAH 90 to UAH 135/kg, while in 2024 it stood at UAH 30–68/kg.