With the collapse of the Italian harvests and the loss of ‘one potato in four’, the retail potato prices are soaring, classifying themselves as the fruit and vegetable product that records the highest spike in consumer prices with an increase of 26% in August compared to the same period of last year.

“This is what emerges from Coldiretti’s analysis of the effects of inflation on the shopping cart with potatoes being the product that rises to the podium of products with the greatest increases after sugar and olive oil,” the Italian Coldiretti association’s experts recently announced.

The fact that potato imports have exploded in response to the collapse of domestic output, with a 27% increase in arrivals that exceeded the record of 500m kilos in the first half of the year, weighs on pricing.

Coldiretti specialists claim that Italian farmers have seen a decline in production that hasn’t been adequately offset by price rises at the source due to the rise in energy costs, while consumer hardship is being caused by retail pricing. Retail prices for consumers increased to levels between EUR1.10 and EUR2.30 per kilo compared to agricultural production prices, which, according to Ismea, average EUR0.54 per kilo.

According to a survey conducted by Unapa, the national union of the sector, 80% of Italians consume potatoes at least once a week, and among the primary purchasing criteria, the quality/price ratio stands out. This is important to 53% of the consumers involved and ranks slightly lower for 45% of those interviewed.

Supplementary Risks and Possible Solutions

“National crops were affected by attacks by wireworms, which are part of the Coleoptera family and are particularly harmful parasites for potatoes, […], but the effects of the flood in Romagna and above all the damage from climate change with devastating storms are added. At risk is a sector with 47,000 hectares of cultivated surface for an annual production of 1.3m tonnes coming almost half from three regions, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, and Abruzzo,” the analysts mentioned.

Representatives of Coldiretti ask for the possibility of using more effective phytosanitary principles to protect cultivation to combat the parasitic attack, which after affecting Italy appears to be affecting other member states of the European Union as well because the risk is to favor imports from non-EU nations where they are used and chemicals that are banned in Europe.

“We therefore need adequate investment planning and adequate tools to defend national production from climatic and phytosanitary adversities,” the Coldiretti representatives summed up.