Yield still the key to production levels as potato acreage rises

The UK potato acreage looks set to be up 4 per cent on the year, according to the latest estimates released this week.

With plantings in Great Britain standing at just over 121,000 hectares, the figure is close to that in the ground in 2014 and similar to those of 2012 and 2013.

The statistics, drawn together by AHDB potatoes market intelligence analysts show a similar increase has taken place across much of Europe, where a 3.6 per cent increase is expected in the main potato growing areas of Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France.

However AHDB analyst Amber Cottingham said that everything was yet to play for as far as overall production.

Despite the area increase, final production figures would depend on the yield of potatoes per hectare – but AHDB market Amber Cottingham said that various scenarios did point to higher production:

“There is still a lot of growing time remaining in the season, so nothing can be taken for granted at this stage,” she said. “An increase in production of between 4 per cent and 8 per cent might sound sensible, but if this season sees another record high-yielding year such as 2015 then production could be as high as 5.9 million tonnes.

A good growing season could see production up by as much as 13 per cent up on the year, she said – but if weather events changed dramatically and yields took a nosedive then production could fall overall.

“A five-year average yield of 44.7 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) would see a production increase of 4 per cent. This average includes 2012, which was an extremely low yielding year due to adverse weather. If we exclude 2012 from the average it becomes 46.7t/ ha, harvest at that rate would result in an 8 per cent increase in potatoes on the market compared to the 2016-17 season.”

She added that an area update would be issued in August.