The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Farming matters
Impact of potato yield variations still too close to call
The size of the UK’s 2018 potato crop remains too close to call due to “huge yield variations” between farms says East Perthshire producer Pete Grewar, chairman of NFU Scotland’s Potatoes Working Group.
“Anyone who tries to put an average yield figure on this year’s harvest is a braver person than I am,” he said.
“The variation across all crops this year, irrigated and non-irrigated, and across all varieties, is the biggest I’ve known.
“To try and pick an average yield out of that is very difficult indeed.”
Mr Grewar was responding to new European crop estimates which put total potato output in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France fully 20% below last year, maybe more.
According to the north-western European Potato Growers (NEPG), this will leave the harvest for continental Europe significantly below 20 million tonnes.
As with Mr Grewar’s assessment of production in the UK, the NEPG report draws attention to an “enormous variation” of yields.
Measurements across the four countries suggest yields may range from as low as 18 tonnes/ha to as high as 80 tonnes/ha, resulting in an overall average that is 13.1% lower than the fiveyear average.
Output figures in Belgium are the worst where the average yield is estimated to be 38.1 tonnes/ha.
This is 29% below the country’s 2017 output and 24% below its five-year average, although it is worth noting that only 3% of the total potato crop in Belgium is irrigated.
In the other three countries covered by the NEPG report, yields are down by between 14 and 20%.
“The European figures are in line with what people in the industry have been talking about for the last two months,” said Mr Grewar.
“That obviously affects prices, although what it’s actually done is to bring prices back up to a ‘more proper’ level for the industry.
“We certainly weren’t at a proper level last year for the potato market,” he said.
Being careful to add that the retail availability of potatoes, and product quality, was not at risk, despite yield reductions, he stressed that potatoes would remain “good value” for shoppers in the months ahead.
Asked to comment on reports that the availability of sufficient seed potatoes to meet growers’ requirements might be an issue next season, Mr Grewar said it was also too early to tell concerning seed numbers.
He said: “What I can say is that the quality of Scotland’s seed potato crop this year has remained extremely good, a fact which needs to be borne in mind within the current context of the European market.”
Based on the NEPG report, however, there could be some shifting of seed variety choice ahead, especially in Belgium, where Bintje – the most widely grown potato variety in the country – is said to have performed poorly this year.