Demand for potatoes will be strong in the coming years as the industrial processing sector continues to grow. This was discussed at the webinar of the Dutch company Van Iperen International.
Dirk van de Water, a representative of Q-potato, spoke about the future prospects of potato production and the development of the industry in recent years in his speech.
The expert suggested that the area under potato cultivation in the EU-4 countries (Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands) in 2022 will increase to 500 hectares or more (from 000 hectares in 400). Thus, in ten years it has grown by 000%. At the same time, the cultivated area in the Netherlands will decrease rather than increase in the long term.
“The reduction is partly due to the fact that farmers have to cultivate the land more intensively,” Van de Water explained. According to him, the current intensive farming also affects the yield of a hectare: “This is the biggest stumbling block. Due to the huge growth of the processing industry, cultivation has become more intensive.”
Also, Dirk van de Water noted that it is increasingly difficult for potato growers in the EU-4 to achieve higher profitability. The trend is precisely that the yield is falling. In 2010, the potato yield was 47 t/ha, it is expected that in 2022 it will remain the same or decrease to 44 t/ha. The expert stressed that the weather has a great influence on the situation.
“The hot summer of 2018 and 2019 certainly caused a decline in revenue,” said Dirk van de Water. “Temperatures of 35 to 40 degrees Celsius for several weeks are not conducive to yield growth, especially in areas where irrigation cannot be used.”
Nevertheless, according to the expert's observations, the volume of potato processing continues to grow, and not only in the EU-4 countries, but also in the United Kingdom. “Production capacity is increasing by almost 5% annually,” Van de Water commented. – In 2010 they reached 12 million tons. I do not exclude the possibility that in 2025 this number will approach 19 million tons.”
Significant cost increase
The Dutch Union of Agriculturalists (NAV) annually calculates the cost of potato production in the country (excluding irrigation costs). This was also discussed in the webinar.
NAV clearly demonstrated to the audience that the cost of production deviates more and more from the contract price. If in 2010 the estimated cost was "only" 13 euros per 100 kilograms, then in 2022 this amount could rise to 19,50 euros per 100 kilograms. In 2010, the contract price was close to the cost price and amounted to 12 euros. In 2022, NAV fixes an average contract price of 16 euros per 100 kilograms.
In 2021, Dutch enterprises processed about 3,8 million tons of potatoes. This is 12 percent more than a year earlier, and is almost equal to the volume of processing in the last year before the pandemic.
French fry growers and other potato processors used over 323 tons of potatoes in December 000. Ultimately, 2021 tons of the final product were produced from this volume. It is noteworthy that at least 172% of the processed volume falls on potatoes supplied from abroad. Last December, 000 tons of potatoes were processed. At that time, the share of imports was 47,8%.
Data from the Dutch Potato Organization (NAO) and the Association of the Potato Processing Industry (Vavi) show that processors have recovered from the severe drop in production they had to endure in 2020. Last year, a processing volume of 3,39 million tons was achieved, a number that is almost on par with the results of 2019, but still behind the achievements of 2017 and 2018 (over 4 million tons of potatoes were processed in the Netherlands during those years).