Harvest woes for UK potato growers

A "perfect storm"of misery is hitting the potato sector as lifting slips further behind and prices fail to offset poor yields and quality and rising production costs.

Crop clearance is more than three weeks behind schedule, with just 24,000ha harvested by the end of last week, compared with more than 49,000ha by the same time last year, Potato Council data shows.

Combined with low yields, increased spraying costs and higher wastage, that has pushed average production costs over £200/t, says Potato Council chairman Allan Stevenson, who grows more than 200ha of potatoes at Luffness Mains in Scotland.

But fresh and processing potatoes are being sold at fixed prices far below that to packers and processors, who are themselves unable to fully recover their costs from retail and food service customers, says Mr Stevenson. "It is leaving a perfect storm of misery in the industry."