Gran Bretaña: Cornish potato grower battles rising costs and tricky planting
Costs are up more than 20% for Cornish salad potato grower Phil Rogers, in a showery planting season which has required further costly cultivations to ensure perfect seed-bed conditions.
Two thirds of potato planting is complete at Pengelly Farms, based near Helston, where production costs are up 20.5% while salad potato market prices have risen only 10-12%.
“With the current labour climate, and diesel and fertiliser bills rising, it really is expensive going at the moment,” says Mr Rogers.
See also: Peas increase wheat yields and lengthen OSR rotation
As inflation bites, farmers are under significant cost pressure, with many looking to insulate their business against escalating costs.
Fortunately, the use of digestate from the farm’s anaerobic digestion (AD) plant has helped offset some of the rise in fertiliser costs, while the use of farm-saved potato seed has reduced exposure to volatile markets.
Watch the video and read the full report below.
Potato planting
Planting of the 550ha salad potato crop started in January on the lighter sandy loams suited to early planting and harvest. The team will continue planting until mid-May.
Early-sown crops are looking well and are now rapidly approaching harvest, despite battling 100mph wind gusts on the Cornish coast.
Mr Rogers says he is happy with how the earlies have performed, with harvest scheduled for 3 May, ready for the supermarket shelves on 5 May.
However, from March onwards cold and showery conditions have proved challenging.
The past three weeks have been particularly difficult, since moving to a heavier block of land near Truro where soil moisture levels have been higher than usual.
This land is getting an extra cultivation pass to help dry soils to achieve perfect seed-bed conditions – something which is absolutely critical for the salad potato market.
“The soil is a bit tacky at the moment,” says Mr Rogers. “We’re having to plough three days ahead and we’re doing an extra cultivator pass to dry the soil out.
“Generally speaking, we would only cultivate the ground once but we’re having to do two passes now.
“Given the greater cost pressure we are already contending with, we could have done without the extra soil passes, but good seed-beds are essential.
“Last season the heavier land was baking in front of the planters, but this year is a completely different story.”
Fuente: https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/potatoes/video-cornish-potato-grower-battles-rising-costs-and-tricky-planting
