Lukashenko’s Harvest: Combating Sanctions, Securing Borscht

MINSK – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently presided over a ceremony honoring top agricultural workers, using the platform to commend their achievements and outline future expectations for the nation’s vital agricultural sector. His address, delivered ahead of the Day of Workers of Agriculture and Processing Industry, underscored the country’s pride in its agrarian workforce. This sentiment was echoed by Minister of Agriculture Yuri Gorlov, who presented the head of state with a ceremonial loaf from the 2025 harvest, praising the resilience of Belarusian farmers through a challenging year and reaffirming their commitment to the president’s oft-repeated mantra: “It is better to harvest bread than to fight.”

The President expressed satisfaction with the projected record-breaking $9 billion in food and agricultural raw material exports for 2025, a significant leap from previous aspirations of $7 billion. However, he swiftly set an even higher bar, targeting $9.5 billion next year and an ambitious $12 billion by the end of the new five-year plan. Lukashenko acknowledged the difficulties posed by international sanctions but asserted that his consistent efforts to rally the populace against external pressures had been successful. He characterized sanctions not as a crippling blow but as a form of “competition,” suggesting that external forces seek to “choke” Belarus for daring to pursue its own path and achieve economic success.

Lukashenko further elaborated on his “choking” theory, drawing a stark comparison to neighboring Baltic states. He claimed that these nations only found favor with larger global players once they “lay flat,” sacrificing their economies to become mere markets for foreign goods. He warned that Belarus faced similar pressures, with external actors viewing the country as a market for products it now manufactures independently, such as combine harvesters and tractors. The President concluded that while competition could be beneficial, it was now being waged “with a gun in hand,” a situation he deemed unacceptable. This rhetoric, critics note, reflects a deeply ingrained presidential philosophy that extends even to the most basic elements of the national economy.

Indeed, the government’s direct involvement in securing essential foodstuffs was highlighted by the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade (MART). Despite a government decree tasking stable funds with procuring fruit and vegetable products by November 15, MART reported that the “borscht set” – a staple of the Belarusian diet – was largely secured ahead of schedule. As of November 10, nearly 96.4% of the 148,780 tons required for the 2025-2026 off-season had been procured.

In a move aimed at preventing future shortages, similar to those that “disappointed consumers and angered the president” in the past year, officials have set strict maximum retail prices for key vegetables. Potatoes are capped at 1.07 Belarusian rubles per kilogram, beets at 1.17 rubles, carrots at 1.35 rubles, cabbage at 1.62 rubles, onions at 1.68 rubles, and fresh apples at 4.8 rubles. Beyond pricing, the state’s regulatory arm has also dictated specific quality standards, including modifying the acceptable size range for potatoes in retail, now set between 45mm and 80mm from a previous lower limit of 35mm.

However, these apparent successes and meticulously managed economic indicators fail to convince opposition experts. Alexander Yaroshuk, leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions and vice-president of the International Confederation of Trade Unions, offered a critical assessment of Belarus’s economic trajectory. He described the current economic management as “pronounced managerial archaism,” likening the Belarusian economy to a “sick horse” that cannot be revitalized by the president’s “whip” alone. Yaroshuk lamented that Belarus remains the only post-Soviet state to have resisted fundamental economic reforms. He further argued that the government’s only consistent promise was to revert the country to Soviet-era conditions, emphasizing a profound lack of true private ownership or “master” to drive genuine economic prosperity and reform.