2024-01-11 06:30:45
French potato producers deplore increasingly significant losses due to climatic conditions.
The 2023 French potato harvest is up 12.7% compared to the catastrophic year of 2022, according to an initial assessment from the inter-professional association, which deplores increasingly significant losses linked to climatic conditions in Europe .
France, the world’s leading exporter and second European producer behind Germany, has “produced more than 6.8 million tonnes of potatoes in 2023”, declared Wednesday Francisco Moya, president of the National Interprofessional Potato Committee (CNIPT), during a press conference in Paris. “We find yields close to the ten-year average, more in line with the areas sown, with a 2.3% increase in cultivated areas,” he reported.
A relief after the 6 million tonnes in 2022, the worst yield in more than 25 years, due to drought and extreme heat which had stunted the tubers. But, in 2023, farmers faced both “a severe drought and then incessant rains”. “Planting was three weeks to a month late, which pushed back the harvest, which was very difficult in certain areas due to continuous rains since October,” he explained.
+21.6% in Picardy
If the harvest is up in Hauts-de-France (+21.6% in Picardy, +13.2% in Nord-Pas-de-Calais), the leading production region, there will still be losses. not quantified, in areas where the soil still contains too much water after the latest floods. “Even if we manage to harvest part of the production, part will be lost (…). There will be some outlets in industrial processing, for example in animal feed,” indicated Francisco Moya.
Several countries in Europe were hit by bad weather, with harvest interruptions. The north of France, the west of Belgium and the coastal regions of the Netherlands were the most affected, according to representatives of the North-West European Producers (NEPG, bringing together France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) . At the end of November, the NEPG indicated that most of the areas remaining to be harvested were in the Netherlands and Belgium, with potential losses estimated between 10 and 15%.
Difficult, even extreme, weather conditions tend to become the norm, noted Francisco Moya, also emphasizing the loyalty of consumers in France, where 50 kg of potatoes are consumed per inhabitant per year.
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