The cost price for growing ware potatoes will increase in 2021, reports the Dutch Arable Farming Trade Union (NAV) after a calculation for example farms on sand and clay.
The main cause for the increase is the irrigation costs potato growers are faced with. The extra costs that arable farmers will have to incur next year as a result of the new regulations to build dams in ridge cultivation will also increase the cost price. ‘The alternative to this is an extra wide cultivation-free zone of 3 meters, which means that the area to be cultivated becomes smaller, with less yield and therefore a higher cost price,’ NAV further reports.
Since 2010, the NAV has been making an annual cost price calculation for the cultivation of ware potatoes on a farm on sandy soil and on clay soil. In 2021 the cost price will decrease because seed potatoes, fertilizers, energy (for storage) and diesel will be cheaper than in 2020. In addition, potato growers will spend less money on cleaning the storage of CIPC residues. The costs are driven up by more expensive crop protection and additional expenditure on sprout inhibition.
Fair cost price
For the 2021 harvest at the sample farm, when delivered from the barn in April, this will lead to a basic cost price for sandy soil of 15.8 cents per kilo and for clay soil of 18.2 cents per kilo. For both, this is 1 cent per kilo lower than the basic cost price in 2020. The real cost prices, whereby a margin of 15 percent is calculated for the risk of the grower, are successively 18.1 cents per kilo and 20.9 cents per kilo. kilo. ‘The fact that the cost price for 2021 is slightly lower than that of 2020 is mainly explained by the costs of cleaning the repository,’ explains the union.
This calculation does not yet take into account the aforementioned irrigation costs and the additional expenditure due to the new regulations. Because irrigation is becoming structural and twice irrigation already results in a cost increase of 1 cent per kilo, the real cost price will soon be 1.5 cents per kilo higher than in 2020. “Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to increase contract prices. decrease ‘, states the NAV.•
On the contrary, the contract prices were already below the calculated cost price for 2020 and because the costs for cultivation, taking into account irrigation and the new regulations, will certainly not decrease in 2021, an increase in contract prices is more appropriate for the cultivation of potatoes. future-proof. ‘
