In North-West Europe, many potato harvesters are in their last working week. Especially in Belgium and the South of the Netherlands, harvesting has sometimes been forced under wet conditions. The consequences of this are now visible in the potato storage facilities.
Dutch arable farmers must, according to estimates, Boerenbusiness still harvest about 5% of the consumption area. Especially in North Brabant, Limburg and the (north)east of the country there are still potatoes in the ground. For growers on sandy soil this is in most cases not such a problem. It is not unusual for harvesting to continue until the first half of November.
Wet in France
In Flanders too, the work has progressed considerably. Potato growers there also have to harvest about 5% of their area. In Wallonia, an estimated 10% to 15% of the potatoes are still in the ground. In Germany and France too, no line can be drawn under the harvesting work. In France in particular, it is locally very wet, which hinders arable farmers in the various activities. Also think of ploughing and sowing winter grain. Only 40% of the grain maize has been harvested at the beginning of November.
Potato growers have also been forced to harvest under the less favourable conditions. Last autumn is still fresh in the memory and no one wants to let it happen. As a result, both in the Netherlands and Belgium, reports of storage problems are being made. Viaverda sees problems with Challenger and Agria. The situation for Fontane and Markies is better. These are less sensitive. Rotten tubers have developed due to the wet conditions and smearing during harvesting, because the lenticels of the tubers were open. The occasional (forced) green harvesting also has consequences for storage. Crops that have not died properly will shed and rot. A few rotten tubers can become contaminated in storage.
Checking and running the fans for many hours is the only solution. The latter was not so easy with the sometimes very high temperatures. In the meantime, the mercury drops below 5 degrees, especially at night, with frost on the ground.
No oversupply
In extreme cases, batches have to be sold early, but these are excesses. There is no question of a pressing supply. European French fry potato prices remained stable at €12,50 last week, with Belgapom now describing the mood as 'price-holding'. There is no oversupply. This is evident from the fact that in practice no free potatoes are for sale at this price. Sporadically, batches are sold, but even for Fontane amounts of around €20 have to be paid and €29 for delivery in April. Growers show little enthusiasm for selling now and see the coming months favourably.
A strong high-pressure area is currently locking the weather pattern in our part of Europe, which means that we are dealing with stable and dry weather. However, it is possible that persistent cloud cover will cause predominantly grey days. Until mid-November, this calm autumn weather will continue to dominate the picture. In the second half of the month, the current weather maps indicate a different weather pattern with regular showers. This means that the potato harvest can be finished without stress.