Spain: Producers demand that Spanish potatoes be given priority.

Potato production in Spain traditionally begins in Andalusia, although this year it has been affected by a series of storms that delayed planting and reduced the cultivated area by approximately 5%, leaving it at around 10,000 hectares. Despite this, the yield is higher than in 2025, according to Marco Román, president of the potato sector at Asociafruit. However, Román reports that new Andalusian potatoes are sharing shelf space in stores with older potatoes from the 2025 harvest, imported from France and stored for months in cold storage. He warns that these older potatoes, present in 80% of Spanish markets, reach high levels of acrylamide when fried, exceeding the limits recommended by the European Food Safety Authority, which links this substance to an increased risk of developing cancer. According to Román, marketing these low-quality potatoes in Spain reflects a surplus of product in France, and he suggests allocating them to animal feed instead of selling them at the same price as fresh potatoes solely for the commercial interests of certain distribution chains.

Alberto Duque, representative of the potato sector at COAG, agrees with Román on the need to implement campaigns that give greater visibility to Spanish potatoes compared to imports and promote clear origin identification on labels to ensure informed purchasing by consumers. He points out that Castile and León, the country’s main producing region, will reduce its cultivated area by around 10% compared to the 50,000 hectares registered in 2025. Ignacio Huertas, head of Agriculture at UPA, links this decision to the "ruinous prices" received by farmers in 2025 as a result of massive imports of old French potatoes. Both Duque and Huertas urgently emphasize the need for transparent labeling that indicates the origin of bulk potatoes, along with campaigns that boost the promotion of freshly harvested domestic produce both within and outside the country.