Argentina: McCain Closes 2025/26 Potato Season as Southeast Buenos Aires Area Falls 12%

McCain Argentina has wrapped up its 2025/26 potato campaign with its annual end-of-season event in Mar del Plata, recognising the growers and contractors supplying its Balcarce processing plant. The company described the cycle as one shaped by adverse weather and rising production demands — a characterisation independently supported by INTA satellite data on planted area and by grower reports of depressed yields.

The supply picture: two forces compressing volume

The headline figure for the season comes not from the company but from INTA’s annual satellite survey of the southeast Buenos Aires region, presented to growers at Nicanor Otamendi in March 2026. Planted area in the 2025/2026 campaign fell 12%, from 38,177 hectares to 33,722 hectares. That is a reduction of 4,455 hectares by our calculation. La Nueva

The contraction was uneven across the region. General Pueyrredón led the decline at −19%, followed by General Alvarado at −17%, Balcarce at −16%, Tandil at −14% and Benito Juárez at −13%. Lobería adjusted more mildly at −5%, while Necochea ran against the trend with a 32% increase. Azul was essentially flat. The survey also recorded 3,329.6 hectares of seed potato in the southeast, distributed across Adolfo Gonzales Chaves, San Cayetano and Tres Arroyos. Portal AgropecuarioPortal Agropecuario

This was a deliberate adjustment rather than an accident of weather. Following a 2025 season marked by oversupply and a price collapse severe enough to force growers to dump product, the sector moved to cut area in order to restore value. La Nueva

Area reduction was then compounded by yield loss. Early potatoes suffered waterlogging after heavy rainfall; the same rains disrupted planting of intermediate crops; and late plantings went in outside the agronomic window, producing short cycles and correspondingly reduced bulking. By August 2026 the outcome was clear on the fresh side of the market: grower Walter Martos reported that yields were very low and total output well below normal, though reduced supply had brought some relief on price after the 2025 glut. La NuevaEl retrato de Hoy

For processors, the two effects stack. A 12% area cut with below-trend yields implies a regional volume shortfall larger than the area figure alone suggests.

What was recognised at the Mar del Plata event

The Fiesta de Fin de Campaña brought together growers, contractors, field representatives and sustainability staff. Finca Vadaju S.A. was named Grower of the Year, Drakar SRL took the seed potato award, Potato Growers SRL placed first in the sustainability category, and Agroiccepac S.A. was recognised as best contractor. Further awards went to technical advisers, storage supervisors and growers distinguished by variety. The main awards were presented by Romina Varela, McCain Argentina’s agriculture director, and Diego Peña, general manager for the Southern Cone.

The account was published by Diario La Vanguardia in Balcarce and reproduced by the trade portal Argenpapa. The company has not released a full list of categories or of second and third placings.

The plant behind the contracts

Balcarce remains the largest potato processing facility of its kind in South America. According to PotatoPro, citing Radio Sudestada, the site covers 64,000 square metres, employs more than 750 people directly, and processes roughly 400,000 tonnes of raw potato a year into around 220,000 tonnes of finished product. It runs continuously across two french fry lines, one purée line and one specialities line, with about 65% of output exported, chiefly to Brazil and other Latin American markets. Its raw material base is approximately 7,000 hectares, 60% of it grown by local producers in and around Balcarce and the remainder on land leased directly by the company. Yields in the supply base are put at 40 to 60 tonnes per hectare. PotatoPro

A historical reference point is useful for reading that yield range. In 2011, McCain’s then field department head Gustavo Scioli described 47 to 48 tonnes per hectare as the normal regional average, with the company contracting around 4,500 hectares from 70 growers, planting in October and completing harvest between May and June. Area figures across the two periods are not directly comparable — the 2011 number covered contracted plantings only, while the current 7,000 hectares includes company-leased ground. potatopro

Regenerative programme: what is measured and what is not

McCain runs a regenerative agriculture competition in the region jointly with Arcos Dorados. The first edition launched in July 2024 with grower training, field data collection and independent assessment against ten environmental, agronomic and social indicators. Winners were selected in June 2025 and announced at the company’s Mar del Plata season-close event that August, with Potato Growers first, Agropecuaria La Gándara second and Huiñay third. The second edition ran from November 2025 to June 2026, with EDRA Global providing technical support, monitoring and data collection. Neither the company nor the reporting on this year’s event linked the second edition’s results to the sustainability award announced in Mar del Plata. Diario La VanguardiaTercer Tiempo

At group level, McCain has committed to bringing 100% of its global potato acreage onto regenerative practices by 2030, and reported that 69% of acreage had reached the framework’s onboarding level in 2025. These are company-reported figures; no independent audit of them has been published. PotatoPro

Practical implications

Contract growers carry the yield risk, not the price risk. In a season where late plantings ran short cycles, a contracted grower absorbs the tonnage shortfall against unchanged per-hectare fixed costs. The margin levers in that situation are planting-date discipline and field drainage status, not contract price.

Volume competition will intensify into 2026/27. With regional supply compressed from both area and yield, processors face a tighter raw material market, and growers weighing a return to area expansion should note that the price recovery now visible is a function of the same shortage that cut their own tonnage.

Judge regenerative programmes on the right levers. Potato is a high-disturbance crop: ridging and mechanical harvest largely preclude reduced tillage within the potato phase itself. The workable levers are rotation length, cover cropping in the non-potato phase and input optimisation. Percentage-of-acreage enrolment figures say little about whether those specific changes are occurring, and should not be read as agronomic outcomes.