Contraction in potato acreage remains uncertain due to signals

In the south of the country and in Drenthe, stories are circulating that several large potato growers are drastically cutting their acreage. In some cases, this involves hundreds of hectares. That adds up. A large number of smaller farms have also decided to grow fewer potatoes.

Nevertheless, there are also many companies that are reducing their acreage little or not at all. They have invested heavily and wish to maintain cultivation on their farms due to a lack of alternatives. Moreover, seed potatoes are inexpensive, and more effort has been put into in-house seed potato propagation in recent years. The large differences between companies make it particularly difficult to get a clear picture of the extent to which acreage is actually shrinking.

More grain sown
Signals from farmers and suppliers indicate that more spring wheat and spring barley have been sown this year. Additionally, it is expected that livestock farmers who ceased operations and grew potatoes last year will switch to maize this year. Due to a shrinking livestock population, dual-purpose varieties are often chosen, allowing for the potential production of CCM.

Potato processors have significantly reduced the share they have locked in based on fixed prices. However, this does not necessarily mean that far fewer hectares are being cultivated. The reduction has primarily been achieved by locking in fewer tonnes per hectare at a fixed price.

Contract cutbacks in fixed-price contracts
If a grower can now secure 25 tonnes per hectare based on a fixed price instead of 30, that represents a 17% reduction in the fixed-price contract. This does not mean that the grower produces fewer potatoes on those hectares. That will depend primarily on the growing season.

The start of the 2026 season is admittedly somewhat later than last year, but not so much later that significantly fewer kilos are to be expected. It is dry at the moment, however, and not much water is expected for the time being. Growth in August and September will, however, be the primary determining factor for the yield.

The question therefore remains whether the reduction in cultivated area is sufficient to achieve the desired reduction in acreage. And that is difficult to answer at this moment. The first statistics from France are not exactly encouraging. The statistics agency Agreste of the French Ministry of Agriculture provisionally forecasts a decrease of 5,2% to 182.151 hectares of ware potatoes (excluding early potatoes).

Desired contraction of 15 percent
It is a decline, but nowhere near the decline that is hoped for. To bring the market back into better balance, a contraction of around 15% is desired. The initial estimate in France remains far from that.

However, the signal from France can also be interpreted positively. A year ago, in an initial estimate, Agreste was still targeting a decline of 1,4%. Later, it turned out that cultivation was actually expanded substantially: up 12%, or an increase of 20.760 hectares to a record area of ​​192.099 hectares. If the figures are adjusted to a similar extent this year, the desired contraction could still become a reality.

However, the likelihood is not very high. Some processors indicate that they expect the contraction in France to be greater than 5%. A larger reduction is also foreseen across the entire EU-4. However, it is unlikely that the reduction will exceed 10%. Increased domestic seed supply and very low prices for purchased seed feed support the idea that the contraction in the EU-4 will not turn out to be much larger than approximately 5%.