A kilo of ajvar peppers costs 15 denars at the farm and up to 100 in the supermarket: who is driving up the price of winter preserves?

Autumn in Macedonia has always smelled of roasted peppers and full jars. This year, before the big pot comes out, the calculator comes out first. Farmers complain they barely cover their costs, shoppers are digging through their wallets - and somewhere between the field and the jar, someone is doing very nicely.

Ajvar peppers are the best example. Farmers say buying stations take them for as little as 15 denars a kilo. At Skopje's Kvantaški wholesale market this week they were selling for 30 to 40 denars, at the cheaper green markets they can be found for 60 denars, and in some supermarkets the price goes up to around 100 denars. From field to shelf - more than six times dearer.

The picture is similar for the other vegetables that go into winter preserves. Wholesale at Kvantaški, potatoes cost 30 to 35 denars a kilo, carrots 25, beetroot 20, cabbage 25 to 30, green tomatoes 40 to 45 and gherkins 55 to 60 denars. At Skopje's Zeleno Pazarče market, beetroot is 60 denars, potatoes 50, carrots for pickling 50 to 60, green tomatoes 60 to 120 and gherkins 80 to 100 denars. True, at Kvantaški people buy in bulk and the quality isn't always the same - but for a family buying a few kilos, the bill at the stall is the only one that counts.

Cauliflower has become a luxury. At Skopje's markets cauliflower and broccoli go for 200 denars a kilo, and over the long weekend, according to the vendors, cauliflower hit 220 to 250 denars. Wholesale it is 160 denars. People say prices were similar in Struga and Ohrid. A pensioner at Zeleno Pazarče said that in one inland town cauliflower was 50 to 100 denars, while in Skopje he sees it at 200 and 250.

Young cabbage at the Bunjakovec market is selling for 120 denars a kilo and has set off a storm on social media. Straight from the field, spring cabbage costs around 35 denars - meaning that by the time it reaches the stall it is nearly four times dearer.

"The traders are skimming the cream. For years I've been saying there's no strategy in agriculture, and on the ground you can see it in the shrinking area under cultivation," says Risto Velkov of Strumica's Agrosojuz farmers' association. According to him, imports are another heavy blow for producers: just when the domestic crop comes in, large quantities of imported produce are released onto the market.

The result is a paradox: the farmer sells below the value of his labour, and the buyer pays as if for a delicacy. Does anyone at the Ministry of Agriculture or the Commission for the Protection of Competition see this gap between the field and the stall? And how many more autumns will it take for pickles to become a memory rather than a winter staple?