French potato acreage declines more than expected

The decline in the French potato acreage will still come into double digits this year. That is clear from an adjustment by the French statistics office Agreste. According to new figures from Agreste, French potato growers have reduced their cultivated area for ware potatoes excluding early potatoes by 13.3% this year. A month ago, a decline of 5.3% was still predicted. The acreage for stored and medium early potatoes is falling this year according to the latest figures to 166,493 hectares. That means growers planted 25,606 hectares less of these potatoes than last year. Due to this decline, the crop is also smaller than in 2024. According to Agreste, the acreage is still 1.1% above the average of the past five years. The French are also growing fewer starch potatoes again this year. This crop is shrinking by 5.1% to 10,253 hectares. In 2024, the acreage of these potatoes was still almost 24,000 hectares. Sharp decline in Belgium Yesterday it became known that the acreage in Belgium is much smaller than a year ago. In Flanders, the cultivation of ware potatoes is shrinking by 23%. The total potato acreage in Belgium is decreasing by 16.3% to 90,364 hectares. In mid May, Destatis published that 7.1% fewer potatoes are growing in Germany this year. According to the estimate of the German statistics office, German growers planted 21,400 hectares less, bringing the total potato acreage down to 280,400 hectares. No figures are yet known in the Netherlands. The expectation is that the CBS will come out with provisional results from the agricultural census at the end of this month. Although fewer potatoes have been planted in some areas, the expectation is that the decline here will be smaller than in surrounding countries. In recent years, the expansion here also remained more limited.