Potato acreage contraction remains uncertain amid mixed signals

The potato sector shows a mixed picture due to differing acreage choices and contract strategies. Contraction remains uncertain, while supply and demand seek balance. In the south and east of the Netherlands, stories are circulating that some large potato growers are cutting back sharply on their acreage. In some cases, this involves hundreds of hectares. That adds up. A large number of smaller businesses have also decided to grow fewer potatoes. Even so, there are also many businesses that are not or hardly reducing their acreage. They have invested heavily and want to maintain potato cultivation on their farms in the absence of alternatives. Moreover, seed potatoes are cheap and in recent years more effort has been put into multiplying their own seed potatoes. The large differences between businesses make it extra difficult to get a picture of the extent to which the acreage is actually shrinking. More grain sown From signals from farmers and suppliers, it can be concluded that more spring wheat and barley have been sown this year. In addition, the expectation is that livestock farmers who have stopped and grew potatoes last year will switch to maize this year. In connection with a shrinking livestock herd, dual-purpose varieties are often chosen, so that it is possible to opt for CCM production. Potato processors have significantly reduced the part they have fixed on the basis of fixed prices. However, that does not directly mean that many fewer hectares are being grown. The reduction has mainly been achieved by fixing fewer tonnes per hectare at a fixed price. Reduction in fixed-price contract If a grower can now fix 25 tonnes per hectare instead of 30 on the basis of a fixed price, that means a reduction of 17% in the fixed-price contract. That does not mean that this grower also produces fewer potatoes on those hectares. That will mainly depend on the growing season. The start of the 2026 season is somewhat later than last year, but not so much later that a significantly smaller yield can be expected. It is dry now and not much water is expected for the time being. However, growth in August and September will be mainly decisive for the yield. Whether the reduction in cultivation area is sufficient to achieve the desired reduction in acreage is therefore the question. And that is difficult to answer at the moment. The first statistics from France are not exactly encouraging. Statistics service Agreste of the French Ministry of Agriculture is currently arriving at a decrease of 5.2% to 182,151 hectares of ware potatoes excluding early potatoes. Desired contraction 15% It is a decrease, but far from the decrease hoped for. To bring the market back into better balance, a contraction of around 15% is desired. The first estimate in France is still a long way from that. Still, the signal from France can also be interpreted positively. A year ago, Agreste was still aiming in an initial estimate for a decrease of 1.4%. It later turned out that cultivation had actually been expanded sharply: plus 12%, or an increase from 20,760 hectares to a record area of 192,099 hectares. If this year’s figures are adjusted to a similar extent, the desired contraction may still become a reality. The chance of that, however, is not very large. Some processors indicate that they expect the contraction in France to be greater than 5%. A larger reduction is also anticipated across the whole EU-4. The chance, however, is small that the reduction will be greater than 10%. More own seed potatoes and very low prices for seed potatoes to be purchased support the idea that the contraction in the EU-4 will not be much greater than around 5%.