Potatoes cockpit, 04.10.2019

This year again brought us only weak returns. Despite a large area expansion, only a below-average crop comes together. However, there is heated debate in the industry about this area expansion of at least 10% to 276,000 hectares. The increase in space is said to have taken place mainly in North Rhine-Westphalia and is incomprehensible to the market participants at this level. Finally, farmers have not submitted any aid applications for such a large area. Assuming that there was no cultivation extension and that the assumed yields per hectare are correct, the German harvest result should amount to only 10.1 million tons. But the assumed yields per hectare are also under attack. On average, only 377 dt of average hectares of acres have grown in federal funds. In the drought year 2018 it was even less with 354 dt. You have to go back to the year 2003 to find comparable small yields per hectare for Germany. In many federal states, local observers are forecasting higher yields this year. As a precautionary measure, the press department of the Ministry has indicated that the final result will differ from this initial estimate.However, it is uncritical that most of the potatoes in Germany have grown this year in Lower Saxony. At 4.9 million tonnes, it is now almost 50% of the harvest. Most farms here can irrigate their potato fields and the average yield of 394 dt was quite good even in the national comparison. Only in Bavaria, where a total of 1.6 million tons were harvested, the yield was higher with 396 dt / ha. The harvest quantity in North Rhine-Westphalia is also stated by the Ministry at 1.6 million tons. If the market participants are right in their criticisms, it could also be 300,000 tonnes less. The meager result in Germany is a reflection of what happened in the other major potato nations in the EU. As a result of the much too small harvest in 2018 and the extremely low final stocks of fresh potatoes and potato products, the early potatoes were quickly in demand throughout Europe. The prices for table potatoes remained at a high level for farmers until the beginning of the main crop.Commodities for processing raw materials fell to 10 € / dt, but are hardly used for free quantities, because farmers now prefer to store and deliver only pre-sold quantities in the factories. Today, the Belgapom quotation for Bintje and Challenger remained at 10 € / dt, but the Fontane quotation attracted around one euro / dt. Yesterday, on the futures exchange in Leipzig, where futures on processed potatoes are traded, this signal led to a price increase of 50 cents on the April 20 futures contract. The price of 16.2 € / dt is still valid today. The wet weather has recently provided better soil conditions and now farmers can recover their crops without damaging the tubers. But there was already too much precipitation on the British coast so that the harvest had to be interrupted. In Scotland there have even been night frosts and the shorter days limit the evaporation rates. The harvest is therefore not progressing quite as quickly. This costs time, which the farmers no longer have for the marketing, because the storage has now in our latitudes the highest priority. This also applies on the other side of the Atlantic.Similar to last year, the potato farmers on the Canadian island of Prince Edward Island (PEI) fear for the quality of their harvest. Last year on 25th September there were heavy frosts that made the harvest unusable to a considerable extent. Although there is currently no frost there but the season started much too cold in the spring, the summer was too dry, then there was storm damage due to a hurricane and now so much rain that the harvest is not progressing.