With a new potato season just around the corner in Northwest Europe, the shortage of seed potatoes seems to be becoming an increasing problem. The availability of seed potatoes is in a perfect storm.
The past cultivation/seed potato season was already one with obstacles and challenges. Firstly, there was a shrinkage of the total area by more than 6% because seed potato growers made different choices. The area of the large chip varieties for the main harvest even shrank by 8%.
The increasingly challenging cultivation due to weather extremes and disease/virus pressure caused seed potato growers to drop out. But the lagging balances compared to consumer cultivation also caused seed potato growers to switch to growing French fries potatoes.
Cost-covering price
Seed potato trading houses proved unable to compensate for increased cultivation costs and declining financial returns with higher payment prices. Costs for land rental and labor have risen sharply in recent years. Because seed potato trading houses, among other things, work with framework contracts with processing industries for the large chip varieties, these contracts turned out to be an obstacle to allowing payment prices to rise in line with the costs at the seed potato grower; something that the processing industry has managed to achieve for chip growers.
In addition to the shrinking area, but also due to the switch to the cultivation of free seed potato varieties such as Spunta and Agria, the growing season was not going well. Few numbers, resulting in low kilo yields per hectare and a lot of coarse seed potatoes, led to an unprecedented shortage on the seed potato market. As a result, the seed potato trading companies have had to take drastic measures to meet their obligations.
Emergency intervention
Halfway through the winter season it became clear that there would not be enough seed potatoes available to meet the demand on the consumer market. Houdini-like strategies were used to try to meet demand. Delivering other sizes, other classes, other quantities, other varieties and the large-scale use of cutting seedlings in half or into quarters, everything was and is being done to meet the obligations that the seed potato trading companies had entered into, especially with the various processing industries. A distinction is also made between customers, for example by asking themselves: who are my most loyal and largest customers and who has not always colored within the lines or is not a processor?
However, now that it comes to delivering to the grower, it is increasingly becoming apparent that even the previously promised volumes, sizes, varieties and qualities cannot all be delivered. Many processors and trading houses still receive changes in previously agreed deliveries on a daily basis, but it is now also clear that they are still far behind in seed potato deliveries.
fait accompli
There are growers who have been told in the last few days that they will not receive seed potatoes and are therefore faced with a fait accompli and have to figure out what to do for themselves. Trading houses and processors also report that a lot of seed potatoes still need to be delivered, with estimates that this would amount to 20% to 40% of the seed potato volume to be delivered.
In the coming weeks it will become clear how deep the crisis is in the seed potato world. There will be growers who receive no or less seed than ordered and for which a contract has been signed. In addition, there are major concerns about quality. Cut seed potatoes, other sizes and poor quality can lead to many claims against suppliers and buyers. The crisis will have consequences for the area of consumption potatoes for the 2024 harvest year, but the shortage of seed potatoes will also have an impact on the seed potato trading companies, the varieties and mutual trust in the coming years.