Boerenbusiness conducted a potato survey among more than 300 growers. One of the most important conclusions from this is that potato growers are growing fewer ware potatoes on contract for the 2022-2023 season. What are their acreage plans, how are higher costs compensated and is the pressure on leased land increasing?
Boerenbusiness conducted a survey among more than three hundred growers about their starting situation for 2022. More than 30% of respondents indicated that they would not change their acreage this year. A smaller group of 20% says they will grow fewer potatoes in 2022 and 13% will grow more potatoes. Most participants grow between 11 and 20 hectares of potatoes and come from Zeeland, Flevoland and North Brabant. The number of Belgian participants is 5%.
Free trade on 1
The majority of participants (18%) say that they commit fewer potatoes to a fixed price contract. 13% say they capture the same volume. After free trade (46% of respondents), the fixed price contract is the most popular way of selling. 33% of respondents use this. With 22%, the potato pool is in third place. Free potatoes outside the contract are covered by half of the participants by participating in the futures market. 14% sell their available potatoes at the daily price, the so-called co-delivery kilos.
The above figures may give a somewhat distorted picture of the market. Because of the link with broker DCA – the parent company of Boerenbusiness – a relatively large number of subscribed potato growers trade on the futures market, with or without a click contract.
Fertilizer drives up costs
All respondents agree that their cost price will increase (significantly) for next season. The majority of growers estimate the increase at 16% to a maximum of 20%. Two groups of equal size think that the increase is a maximum of 15% or a maximum of 25%. The spread is large. More than a quarter cite fertilizer prices as the main driver of the increased cost price, followed by crop protection and energy. Yet 30% say that they will not use less fertilizer in cultivation. 15% will use more liquid manure.
Relatively many potato growers indicate that they do not yet know how to deal with this price increase. The largest group (a quarter of the participants) does this by growing more free potatoes. The group that will grow less is a lot smaller at 13%. Potato growers are relatively stable, but that sentiment is changing. 30% say they will not switch customers, but a fifth say they are still thinking about it. Reasons for switching are rarely mentioned. Almost all participants do not change their sales strategy. If they do do this in some cases, it is mainly to store more potatoes for a long time.
Pressure on rental land
Consciously reducing the area is one thing, forced reduction is another matter. A quarter of participants say that the availability of rental land in their region is decreasing. The vast majority say that this will not change. They are also not going to rent more or less land. The group that rents less land is relatively small at 17%. So if there is less planting this spring, it will mainly be on private land. Grain is the most popular alternative to potatoes. Some participants rent more land because opportunities arise.
The availability and price of seed potatoes is not seen as an obstacle for the coming season. There is plenty available. Its price remains stable to slightly increasing. The answers to this are evenly divided. 6% say they have less choice and 7% grow their own starting material.
Correction again?
We did not ask the participants to indicate a percentage by which the potato area will decrease this year. Based on the answers provided, we can conclude that an increase is certainly not possible. Last year, the area of ware potatoes decreased by 5% to 72.000 hectares in the Netherlands. This decline is unlikely to be corrected. Another slight decline is certainly possible.
The sound of cutting back on cultivation is less loud than a season ago. At the end of 2020 Boerenbusiness the same research out. At that time, almost 50% indicated that they were growing fewer potatoes, compared to 20% this year. The corona pandemic was then the main motivator to put fewer potatoes in the ground. An equally large group cited falling contract prices as the main reason, which ultimately became true.
Key trends
The potato survey shows a number of trends among the participants for the 2022 season: