UK: Growers quit but potato acreage is steady

In the aftermath of last year’s difficult growing and harvesting season, almost one in ten of Britain’s potato growers decided to call it a day, but, according to Rob Clayton of the Potato Council, the 2013 acreage of potatoes in the country has not fallen.

Speaking at the Potatoes in Practice day outside Dundee, he said that the number of growers in Britain this season would only be just above 2,000, a drop of 200 from 2012, but the 3 per cent of the national acreage they grew has been snapped up by larger-scale growers.

“It is the smaller producers who are dropping out, feeling that enough is enough and not getting sufficient returns on the enterprise for the risks they have to take. On preliminary figures for this year, the acreage seems to be similar to last year’s level.”

Earlier this year, Clayton had speculated that there might be increased plantings on account of high prices for the 2012 crop but this did not seem to have happened.

On yield, he said that it was too soon to predict what the national potato crop would be as he had seen some very poor crops with the tops hardly meeting in the drills but he had also seen some potentially very good crops.