Spotty and expensive - How the drought has spread to potatoes

21-Nov-2018 - Germany

After massive crop losses due to the drought, potato prices for consumers have risen by more than half. At present, customers in supermarkets have to pay around 84 cents per kilogram for potatoes in small packages, whereas the price per kilogram a year ago was 55 cents. This was reported by Christoph Hambloch, analyst at the Agricultural Market Information Service (AMI) in Bonn. Further price increases could occur in spring.

The potato processing industry lamented a potato harvest that had reached an "historic low" of around 8.7 million tonnes. The supply of companies is currently "not clearly predictable", said Horst-Peter Karos, spokesman for the Federal Association of the Fruit, Vegetable and Potato Processing Industry (BOGK).

"Where there is no raw material, it cannot be processed", Karos said. A continuous supply of high-quality raw materials until the end of the new season seems "from today's point of view not secured". In addition, the industry is suffering from a significant increase in the price of raw materials. Karos did not want to comment on the possible effects on consumer prices.

The bottleneck, for example in French fries production, is directly noticeable for consumers. "We will see that the French fries are smaller," he said. Other potato varieties would also be processed. "You don't know whether you can taste it," Karos said. Basically, however, the manufacturers of chips, potato dumplings or other products are also affected by the problem. The association estimated the reduced yields at an average of 25 to 30 percent. Possible further failures due to quality problems such as glassiness and germination have not yet been taken into account.

According to Hambloch, consumers would also have to prepare themselves for a larger supply of potatoes that are not completely flawless in appearance, which would have been sorted out by the farms in years with better harvests. In view of the current shortage, there are currently more tubers with dark spots or scab pustules on supermarket shelves. Hambloch explained, however, that these are purely optical defects which have no influence on the consumption of the potatoes.

Despite a harvest decrease with food potatoes in Germany around 1,5 to 2,0 million tons in this year no supply bottlenecks are to be feared. In total, the harvest was about 3 million tons lower.

After the good year 2017, however, many farms could still fall back on surpluses. In addition, there would be reduced potato exports and increased imports, which are to be expected especially for early potatoes in the coming year.

Potato farmers who had reaped a significant harvest despite the drought could currently benefit from significantly higher prices. Producer prices have more than doubled from 10 euros per 100 kilograms to 25 to 26 euros.

Problems could arise for farmers who had already marketed their crops in advance at fixed prices, Hambloch said. The situation is also sometimes dramatic for processors such as peeling companies, especially in eastern Germany.

For the coming year, the experts expect further problems due to a shortage of seed potatoes as a result of the poor 2018 harvest. According to the BOGK the seeds will not be available in sufficient quantities, especially for early potatoes./uta/DP/she (dpa)

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1158482/spotty-and-expensive-how-the-drought-has-spread-to-potatoes.html