Kartoffeln Cockpit, 21.06.2019

The potatoes in the fields are currently suffering from the great heatwave in Europe. This need not necessarily affect the main crop of consumer potatoes in Europe, but it does present risks to market participants. This led to a change of sentiment on the EEX derivatives exchange in Leipzig this week. Today a week ago there were still traded on the date April-20 13 € / dt, today, the highest price was already at 15 € / dt. The already increasing demand of potato processors in Europe is aggravated by the fact that we have hardly any reserves at the end of this year's marketing period. The raw materials from the old harvest in Europe, except for a few lots of contract potatoes in Holland and on the British Isles, have been used up so far that the frits are being reworked sooner than usual. The break in processing will probably take longer due to raw material shortage. In addition, more and more capacity for frit production has been created in recent years, which was only used in the first three quarters of last year. In addition to the above reasons, the demand for raw materials is also increasing because there is now a gaping gap in the product warehouses. The high prices for fries and Co.brought the stockholders exceptionally good proceeds, which irritated the depletion of supplies. The supplies have to be replenished. The factories will probably not start immediately once the new crop is here, but only in the summer when the harvest is in full swing and prices are falling again. Previously, most factories will both use pre-contracts but will stock up on the free cash market as well. This is the best conditions for suppliers, since Belgian factories will be able to shop on the open market right from the start. By contrast, Dutch factories are expected to be able to rely on contracts for old potatoes until the beginning of August. In any case, Belgian fry factories can no longer secure further cultivation areas for potatoes in their own country. The maximum acreage had already been reached in previous years and so they are buying in an ever wider radius in neighboring countries. In addition to Germany and Holland, French farmers benefit the most. In Haute de France (formerly Nord-Pas de-Calais and Picardie), potato cultivation in 2019 also increased particularly strongly.The most recent survey conducted by the local cultivation association UNPT announced that this week, production area for potato cultivation would increase by 3,000 hectares to 148,290 hectares. The increase in area is thus in France, especially in the north, where mainly processing raw material is growing. The extended catchment area also made good use of Belgian factories last year. Their product exports to third countries and also in the European internal market exceeded those of the Dutch. From July 2018 until February 2019, Belgium delivered around 1.02 million tonnes of fries to EU countries - an increase of 8% over the previous year. Holland delivered 716,000 tonnes. Belgium supplied 570,000 tonnes of potato products to third countries (+ 20% yoy). And so Holland slipped back to second place. Looking at the current new potato market, it can be seen that the yield level so far has been mostly good, but not extraordinarily high. This is often attributed to the strongly aged plant material that was used due to the scarce availability and the great heat of the previous year.This should also lead to disappointment in the course of harvesting later maturing varieties in some a farmer. The resilience of the field crops will probably be tested next week for the first time this season, when one or the other potato strike temperatures of 40 ° is exposed.