It is a fact that the potato harvest in France is also disappointing. However, the exact yield remains guesswork. The figures from the government and growers' organization UNPT vary widely. What is true and what figure is the yield?
The French agricultural ministry Agreste released positive figures about the potato harvest in August. However, they also now estimate the 2018 harvest to be lower. In their latest forecast, that decrease is 4,5%, good for 300.000 tons of potatoes. This would bring the total potato yield to 6,07 million tons.
Which figures are true?
If we look at the figures from the grower organization UNPT look, they show a completely different picture. The trial harvest figures, from the second half of September, show that the yield is more than 10% below the 5-year and 10-year average. There is talk of approximately 44 tons per hectare. This means that French potato crops are missing at least 5 tons of product. With its own figures, UNPT arrives at a harvest of between 5,2 and 5,7 million tons.
What makes it difficult is the variation in yield. The figures vary in all directions and are subject to, among other things, the soil type, the variety, the location and, above all, the possibility of irrigation. What the organization can say is that irrigated plots yield an average of 13 tons more potatoes per hectare compared to non-irrigated fields.
Table potatoes in demand
CNIPT, the interprofessional national potato organization in France, endorses UNPT's figures. It speaks of yields that are between 6% and 25% lower. In the table potato region of Champagne it is relatively not too bad, because there is a lot of rain here. Processors poach table potato growers to buy free potatoes; Varieties with a high dry matter content are especially popular. That is a problem for CNIPT. On the one hand, they want to keep their members in the table potato sector satisfied, but on the other hand, they also want to keep the French fries industry happy.
These figures come as no surprise. With the Belgian figures in mind, it is unthinkable that (french fries) potato plots just across the border have grown significantly better. Where confusion may arise is in the cultivation of table potatoes in Champagne and further south. A lot can be irrigated here. This cultivation is less interesting for the chip potato market, although these lots are now also being acquired.
Aftergrowth is missing
While the Netherlands was able to benefit somewhat from the precipitation in September, this was hardly the case in Belgium and France. The Belgian figures even show that the yield in Wallonia is considerably lower than that of Flanders, while this picture is normally the other way around.