News on Potato Stats, Trade, Prices

As the first month of import and export data of potatoes and potato products after Brexit is in, the AHDB takes a closer look at the data and what they could mean. Across all potato product categories recorded, UK imports and exports have fallen from December with figures at the lowest reported this marketing season.

The sale of potatoes is not entirely disappointing at the moment, observes Felix Molenaar of potato and vegetable wholesaler Molenaar from Haarlem.

The strength in demand for potatoes grown in Mondulkiri, Cambodia, has farmers in the region planning to expand their cultivation for next season, says Song Kheang, director of the province’s agriculture department.

Potato cultivators in West Bengal were afraid they will face severe losses as the price of good quality seeds have skyrocketed even as the minimum support price (MSP) fixed has remained relatively low.

VerDi Import in the Netherlands has received their first Nicola potatoes. These arrived from Morocco at the beginning of the month.

Kenya’s potato production could hit 2.5 million tonnes in 2021 up from the estimated 2 million tonnes produced in 2020, the industry said on Friday.

The export of potatoes from Mallorca to the United Kingdom and Scandinavia of Lady Christl new potatoes started on Sunday. The centre of this export in Mallorca is the municipality Sa Pobla, where exporters still have some concerns because of Brexit.

El presidente de la Federación Nacional de Productores de Papas y Hortalizas (Fenaphort) solicitó a las autoridades que se abran las exportaciones de papas y hortalizas hacia los mercados del Caribe.

Retail prices of potatoes have risen marginally, given that farmers have been scrambling to stock up on the harvest, which has had a bumper production this year. This very bounty and the stockpiling is expected to keep potato prices stable over the next season.

El líder de los paperos en la región Gildardo González indicó que en el caso del tubérculo para la industria llevan buen avance en la cosecha. No obstante, lamentó que los precios del tubérculo no son los mejores al inicio de estas cosechas y se espera que tiendan a bajar un poco más.

No one could miss it in the media last year: the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Belgian potato sector hard.

During the hearing of the Mexican Supreme Court held on February 24, the justice who authored the draft ruling overturning a ban on the importation of U.S. fresh potatoes asked the court to postpone a vote until next week at the earliest.

Mallorca has been exporting potatoes to the United Kingdom since 1927 and future exports are now guaranteed because the British Government has agreed to change the regulations and allow Mallorcan potatoes to be sold in the British market.

Predicting a bumper harvest of potato this season, the West Bengal Cabinet on Monday decided to allow cold storage owners to purchase at least 10 lakh (1 Million) metric tons of tuber from farmers at a fixed price, so that they do not have to suffer losses, a senior official said.

On February 17, 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court released a draft ruling that would overturn a 2017 lower court decision preventing the Mexican federal government from implementing regulations to allow the import of fresh US potatoes throughout the country.

United States potato exports continue to recover but remain behind previous year levels. Exports for the first six months of the marketing year, July – December 2020, are behind the record levels set in 2019.

EastFruit analysts predict that Russia may sharply increase the volume of imports of potatoes from Egypt in the 2020/21 season.

In late January-early February 2021, the next stage of potato wholesale prices growth began in Moldova. However, it was only the cheapest locally produced potatoes that rose in the price from 3 lei/kg to 3.5-4.0 lei/kg ($0.21-0.24/kg).