Today at the British Potato Show in Harrogate, Fred Searle presented eight key messages reflecting the current state of affairs in the industry.
The UK potato crop has been hit hard by heavy rain and flooding in recent weeks, causing harvest delays and significant crop losses. This was preceded by a cold, wet spring and cool summer with low light levels. As a result, we are facing the lowest UK potato harvest ever recorded.
Currently, domestic production is sufficient to fulfill contracts, but weather problems this year may require imports from countries such as Egypt and Israel in May-June 2024.
Indicators show that the area planted to potatoes in the UK has fallen by more than 20 percent over the past two years, mainly due to extreme weather conditions and unstable production costs (fertilizers, fuel, etc.).
Potato producers for the chip industry have been supported by significant input price increases from major chip manufacturers in the last few years, but price support from major retailers has been more variable. However, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have “unblocked some dialogue” with retailers regarding prices.
There is a discrepancy between supermarkets’ stated support for varieties resistant to PCN (potato nematode) and their willingness to accept the slightly lower cooking quality that usually characterizes resistant varieties.
Overall, there is still a lot of work to be done in potato breeding to develop varieties that combine pest/disease/climate resistance as well as storage, cooking and flavor qualities.
The area of potato nematode-free land in Scotland continues to decrease, making seed potato production there increasingly expensive and difficult.
There is great opportunity to extract additional value from the potato crop by extracting potato protein or compounds such as solanesol, a valuable ingredient in cosmetics and medicine.
In conclusion, it is not an easy time for the UK potato industry, but there is still plenty of room for innovation and improvement!
