Potato price super stable, new season exciting

Belgapom sends a clear signal that the market is firmly in favor of direct delivery. Due to the shifting of contract stocks, but also because processors supply potatoes to each other, the market appears stable. The real fireworks seem to be mainly reserved for the months of June and July. The different processors will each have and light their own fireworks. A number of Dutch processors have an asterisk, but there will also be a number of Dutch and Belgian processors who have a big hit.

As mentioned, for direct delivery kilos is mainly charged in the range of the different quotations. There is clearly demand for further down the road and the end of the potato season, where prices are offered that are significantly higher than current quotations.

€50 has now been paid for Fontane for the month of July and there remains interest. Belgium in particular is the main driver and in the Netherlands it is the trade that purchases for this, among other things. It seems logical that the Belgians have the most concern. Last autumn they were hit hardest with potato losses due to the extreme harvest conditions. But this spring they are again the most affected in the EU-4 by extreme weather.

Belgium is furthest behind in the area of ​​potatoes planted and due to extreme showers, plots have already been written off for the new season. The quantity of early potatoes and the availability date will (it now seems) be the tightest there. Germany seems to have fared best this spring. The early ones were planted there in reasonable time and growth is good. There has also been much less extreme weather than in the Belgian early cultivation areas.

Connection is pinching
There is therefore fear of a copy of last year in the connection between the old and new seasons. It should be noted that June last year was an extremely dry and hot month. To be assured of potatoes, people are interested in fries potatoes that can be stored for a long time. The problem is that there are very few free potatoes on the market. Many potatoes have been contracted and are therefore no longer for sale. Buying 20.000 tons of free potatoes for June/July is very difficult in the current market. In any case, the 'real' free grower (with mechanical cooling) is once again handsomely rewarded for his courage and daring in the increasingly regulated potato market.

While there are concerns about the connection, there are just as many concerns for next season when it comes to availability and volume. The extreme weather affects the yield capacity of many potato plots. The poor soil structure due to last year's bad autumn will leave its mark on the yield. Furthermore, many potato growers and seed potato suppliers are concerned about the emergence and growth potential of the planted seed potatoes. Late planting with physiologically old seed potatoes with a poor structure and often also cut seed potatoes is a harbinger of many emergence problems. There are already cultivation advisors who expect that more than 25% (emergence) problems are expected with cut seed potatoes that have already been planted. This will therefore also cause a loss of yield.

The only thing that can give hope is when the growing season will actually be productive. In the event of (again) weather extremes (drought and/or extremely high rainfall), the five-year average yield will still be a long way off. This also explains why the new harvest on the futures market continued to rise this week towards €33.