Kartoffeln Cockpit, 01.03.2019

With little optimistic market descriptions, the analysts of Fiwap / PCA speak after last week's Belgian potato stocks were estimated. Inventories were 17% lower on February 1 than the average of recent years. At the middle of the season, only 1.8 million tonnes were stored in the barns of the farmers. Only 20% of them were not sold yet. 44% of the stored potatoes are already consumed. 12% more than the average of the last five years under contract. Although it is obvious that the industry needs a lot more raw material than it has under contract, the sales of free goods were recently conspicuously low. From May, the market could revive, writes today the AMI. For now, prices are weakening slightly. The EEX index for processed potato yielded another 10 cents on Thursday and was calculated at 31 € / dt. At the derivatives exchange, the majority of the players are no longer as euphoric as at the beginning of February. At that time, the April 19 futures contract was still close to € 33 / dt. Meanwhile, many long-hedgers or speculators have taken their profits and have thus pushed the prices below the 30-euro mark.Obviously one speculates currently on further falling cash market quotations, because the basis for the April-19-date is minus 1, which means that one expects that En-de April, the processing potatoes are one euro cheaper than today. The REKA-Rheinland corrected its quotations for Fontane by 1-1.5 € / dt down today; the varieties Agria and Innovator continue to record at the previous week's level at 31-33 € / dt. In order not to let the supply gap be too large, many farmers in the west have used the beautiful pre-spring weather of the last 14 days and planted them quickly. The PotatoCall writes that in many cases the plantings are 10 days more advanced than in other years. First table potatoes from the Channel Island Jersey could already be harvested at the end of March. In Cornwall, 70% of the planned Lady Rosetta is already in the ground; Chips varieties and even varieties of the main crop have already been planted. But for now, stockpiles are in short supply and the demand for French ware potatoes is currently described as lively. From all the surplus regions of France, good export sales are reported.Even Pommesware from Nord-Pas-de-Calais costs 35 € / dt as much as table potatoes from the Champagne. But the factories in France have processed many more potatoes than usual. They are thus among the few winners this season, in the previous years, they were more difficult with the French production. Since the potato harvest in France in 2018 turned out to be quite passable, unlike the other countries in Central Europe, at least the exporters and fry factories benefit from it. The French farmers can also fulfill their contracts so that they will not be sued for damages like their colleagues in Belgium, Holland and Germany. The many preliminary contracts have proved to be problematic this year. The factories need raw material security, but also want to fix the purchase prices right away. After a low-price year as in 2017/18, the contract prices were attractive enough a year ago that many farmers have sold more than they actually reaped later. Now the parties are arguing over how to deal with the unfulfillable contracts.After all, you do not want to go so far as to make future cooperation impossible.