Jose Lamaire, Bart's Potato Company:
Potato market revival not yet in sight
Export is practically lying still. "There is a small amount going to neighbouring countries, but the potatoes are not yet ready. Exporting is therefore difficult," explains the merchant. "The old potatoes are gone. They are technically still here, but they are as good as sold. There is little trade going on." According to Jose, it is a fiasco in comparison with last year around the same time. "We are talking about an enormous difference. We are now at one tenth of the price compared to last year. Last year we bought potatoes at 350 Euro a ton, now we are buying them at 35 Euro a ton. The price has been going down the whole year, it's incredible. During the harvesting period we were at 150 Euro, now we are at 35 Euro. We are really at rock bottom."
Not good
A revival of the potato market is not yet in sight. "The new potatoes grow really quickly. We already have 50 tons per hectare. Last year this was 25 tons. We are now therefore growing double as many potatoes. On top of this, everyone is already well off in contracts. Russia was definitely a major miss this year. There was always a great deal of potatoes going out of the country. Right now there are not a lot of export options because potatoes are planted all over the world. An extreme amount of potato seeds are sold from the Netherlands. These Dutch seeds are in every country, including the countries we export to. If we look at it in this way, the near future does not look good. Or else there needs to be, for example, a lot of rain so that the potatoes cannot be harvested," says Jose.
For more information:
Bart's Potato Company
Westvleterenstraat 25a
8640, Vleteren, België
Tel: +32 57 40 91 20
Fax: +32 57 40 91 21
www.lamaire.be