Planting a hectare of potatoes means investing around 800 euros more than in the campaign a year ago
The potato sector is assailed by doubts and the producers, who at this time of year must order the seed that they will sow from March, do not get the accounts. “Right now you have very high costs and you don’t know how you are going to sell later,” says Eduardo Arroyo, president of the Association of Potato Producers of Castilla y León (Appacyl) who predicts a fall in the surface of this crop that could come at 20%.
«It is evident that the sowing is not going to fall by 50%, but possibly between 15 and 20% if this does not change» , and refers to the fact that «the fertilizer is worth more than double that of last year, the nitrogenous triple, and people, in order not to burden the costs of exploitation any more, will take refuge in other crops such as peas or sunflowers, and instead of 20 hectares of potatoes, they will divide them”.
The biggest problem he sees is energy costs – “contracts are being closed 120% higher than last year’s” – so when it comes to watering, the farmer thinks of crops with fewer needs, such as sunflower.
On the other hand, Arroyo estimates that the cost of planting a hectare of potatoes was around 6,500-7,000 euros last season and this year they have skyrocketed to 8,000-8,500 euros. Arroyo understands that “this difference has to be covered with an increase in the price of the contracts; if we don’t cover a very important part of that, it doesn’t matter.”
Without asking for seed
The president of UPA Ávila, Ventura González, agrees in lamenting the increase in costs, which means that at the moment “people are not asking for seed because they don’t know what to do, nor are the contracts uploaded, the crop is not profitable ».
Much of that seed comes from Holland or France, although an important part also moves from Burgos. González adds that in irrigated sunflower plantations “with two irrigations you already have production “, something impossible in other types of crops. “If you are going to have an increase in costs of 800 euros or more than in another campaign and the price of the potato remains the same, it is not interesting to bet on it; to get about 300 euros of profit you do not sow, that is not profitability ».
Eduardo Arroyo specifies that the sector is not unaware of the rise in the price of diesel, but “what had never been seen before are these cost increases of 30% in just 100 days, and it is not seen that it will be regulated during 2022, gives the feeling that they are here to stay; It would be an aberration if energy prices are not regulated”.
- all the potato varieties have begun to be listed in the Lonja de León, with prices similar to those of last season, between 70 and 170 euros per ton. The area planted in the province of León is 1,300 hectares and yields are expected to be 10% higher than last year, between 45 and 47 tons per hectare.
Eduardo Arroyo concludes that the farmer “has a hard time leaving crops with which he has spent his whole life, but there will be a setback because there is fear, because with these costs if there is no increase in price, the accounts do not come out, and there will even be -he assures- who risk it on the free market, without a contract, but instead of 20 hectares it will be 10».
