2024 NEPG Potato Production Has a Good Overall Quality
For potato growers throughout the NEPG in North-West Europe, the growing season of 2024 was challenging, stressful, risky, and costly – especially because the major harvest had not yet been completed. As the effects of climate change accumulate, new difficulties arise.
With a 7% higher area in the EU-04 (560.000 ha, i.e. plus 37.000 ha), global production will be higher than the five-year average i.e. more than 22,7m tons, with average yields per ha probably similar to last year.
“Overall quality is good, with generally high underwater weight, but mostly with insufficient length,” according to the latest NEPG report.
A Difficult Growing Season
An almost never-ending list of issues and difficulties characterized the season: the cultivation of over 80 different varieties, mostly in Belgium, for the processing industry; the use of a large amount of cut seed (with some dramatic consequences due to poor management and even more rain after planting); and the initial scarcity of seed, which drove up seed prices.
Heavy and constant rainfall during the planting season and summer led to plantings spread over more than 10 weeks! This occurred mainly in Belgium and the southern Netherlands, and less so in France and Germany. The majority of plantings occurred in conditions with poor soil structure. Important rainfall before, during, and after plantings caused one of the largest late blight pressures ever.
“New or evolving blight strains and the need to combine different active ingredients for each treatment led to higher spray costs and in most cases to more sprayings except for the late-planted fields (some of these had not yet been planted or emerged at the time of the first treatments!),” the NEPG experts added.
Harvest and Storage
In the upcoming weeks, harvesting and storage need to receive enough attention. Some less frequent kinds (low submerged weight, poor frying quality) might not be good for storing. For the common cultivars, issues with bacterial rot, tuber late blight, and/or bruising (black patch, caused by excessive submerged weight) may arise, contingent on the weather at harvest.
“Rising processing capacity is not automatically synonymous with rising demand of potatoes or sales of frozen products!” the above-mentioned experts said.
They added that the potato industry is doing well. Growers need to be aware of the possibility that processing capacity may increase more quickly than the demand for processed goods, particularly in North-West Europe but also in North America, Asia, and South America.
The potato growers need to think carefully about producing what they can in a reasonable manner, rather than just what processors desire. Potato cultivation is becoming more risky and costly as a result of climate change, and it is also placing more strain on the soil, water, and biodiversity of their surroundings – natural resources that they depend on.
“Growers need to preserve this capital if they want to continue farming successfully in the future,” the NEPG experts concluded.
