Inside Potato
Futures market harvest 2019 ends in a deep pit
Anyone who had predicted a few weeks ago in the potato market that the April 2020 futures market quotation will settle below €10,00 would have been fooled. Yet this is the reality on the futures market imploded by the corona crisis.
Would you like to continue reading this article?
Become a subscriber and get instant access
Choose the subscription that suits youThe sad end result is a cash settlement of €2,00, on which the still outstanding contracts (3.780) are settled. The course of the cash settlement from the end of February/beginning of March up to and including week 17 is exemplary of the course of the physical market.
Sour events
In the current market environment, there is no good reason to imagine what would have happened without the corona crisis. However, settlement of the 2019 harvest between €15,00 and €20,00 would certainly have been possible. The events in the potato market of the last 2 weeks and the almost unimaginable damage that the crisis is causing and will cause are all the more sad.
The 2020 futures market harvest is trading today (Friday, April 24) at around €11,50, a market price well below cost. Apparently there is already a lot of fear about next season. The question is whether the major customers (read: the chip processors) will get things back on track in the foreseeable future. In other words: when will things normalize again in the post-corona era, when it comes to sales, export and consumption, for example.
