Poland: The young potato market has collapsed. Does this bode ill for the 2025 harvest?

The table potato is currently in full growth, is flowering and is entering a period of critical water demand. In the meantime, the harvesting of varieties intended for early harvest is already underway. First, tubers are harvested from plantations planted with sprouted seed potatoes and covered with agrotextile. Unfortunately, the current market situation is not conducive to favorable prices. Should we be afraid of problems in the fall of 2025, when potatoes from the main harvests will be released? We asked Dr. Wojciech Nowacki from the Polish Potato Association about this.

This year, the area of ​​potato crops has increased significantly. Should farmers be concerned about difficulties in selling this year’s harvest?

Dr. Wojciech Nowacki: Theoretically, high supply may raise concerns, but the final picture of the market is also influenced by this year’s potato harvest, which we do not know in detail yet. It is worth remembering that local droughts, high temperatures, and earlier frosts do not herald record yields. On the other hand, early potato harvests this season are surprisingly satisfactory - according to market information, the yields are even slightly higher than last year.

Are there any preliminary estimates for this year’s crops?

- In 2024, the average national yield was 302 dt/ha according to the Central Statistical Office. We can initially forecast that this year’s autumn harvest will reach even 330 dt/ha, which would mean a harvest of 7.4 million tons compared to 5.9 million tons a year earlier.

What about prices? We see big drops for young, fresh potatoes

- Traditionally, the price of potatoes is determined by the supply and demand relationship. Recent days have shown that the cumulative harvest of early potatoes has caused a collapse in wholesale prices for young potatoes, even below PLN 1 per kilogram. This is due to the fact that producers of young potatoes must quickly harvest and turn over the crop. It is a perishable product. What is more, they want to quickly free up the field to plant Chinese cabbage, for example.

Do potato imports also affect the market?

- Definitely yes. June and July is the period when early potatoes from the Mediterranean region arrive in Poland, which increases supply and lowers prices, especially since wholesalers and packing plants prepare deliveries for retail chains. Young potatoes are perishable and are not suitable for longer storage or retail packaging, which additionally forces rapid turnover of goods.

There have also been signals about exporting Polish potatoes to the East. Is this a real chance?

-This season, there was a chance to export potatoes to Belarus and further to Russia, where there was a large deficit of this vegetable. It is difficult to say today whether export will be possible on a larger scale in the coming months, but the fact is that demand determines the prices of potatoes from domestic harvests.

What else will the final level of the harvest and its quality depend on?

- The key will be the further course of the weather and the effectiveness of plantation protection and fertilization. Harvest conditions, the quality and health of the tubers, as well as storage losses will be important. Ultimately, it will be the marketable yield that counts, not just the overall yield.

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Will domestic harvests meet the needs of the market and processing?

- Yes, Polish potatoes must meet the needs of the edible potato market, food processing (chips, crisps, dried potatoes) and the starch industry, which has been struggling with a deficit of raw materials for years. In the edible potato sector, wholesale prices should remain within the range of PLN 800-1000 per tonne, while raw materials for processing should be sold in accordance with contract agreements.

And in the long term? Does the Polish potato have a chance to appear on international markets?

- It is possible. Current forecasts indicate quite favorable potato harvests this year in our country. We need potatoes on the domestic market and also on emerging opportunities for exporting Polish potatoes. Maybe we will finally make a presence on the international potato market. Eastern Europe and Southern Europe need Polish potatoes. It will depend on traders to export more potatoes from our country and import less from the Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe. Unfortunately, there are no institutions in our country that analyze and indicate the directions of international turnover of agricultural products, including potatoes. The global world market is a fait accompli and we must learn to use it. Central institutions: MRiRW, PIORIN, IJHARS should support entrepreneurs operating in the potato industry and eliminate pathological phenomena and companies that also operate in the Polish potato industry. This is not always visible in practice.