Full sheds and no trade, that sums up the image at the end of a carrot season that has seen only losers. At the Landbouwbeurs Noord en Centraal Nederland (LNCN) there are no notes on carrots as there are no transactions. "We've never experienced the trade dropping out completely," says LNCN secretary Maas van de Heuvel, who says that the history of the fair with carrots goes back to 1995. This is despite the fact that there are enough carrots in storage. To get rid of these carrots, growers even have to take on the cost of cleaning them so that they're suitable for cattle fodder.
Dramatic
Traders and processors are calling the situation dramatic. The highest prices this year were around 10-12 Euro in the period from mid January to the end of February. After this the prices started to slowly sag. There were no holes in the market.
"We had a small position that we sold in October. We were calling for growers to empty their sheds from November," says a processor who had a feeling about the season. "The station is full but the train has left," a trader concludes. We have to face the reality, the market is saying no. This also goes for the grower who still has 4,000 boxes of carrots. To cover the costs, they would have to yield at least 100 Euro each. Their losses will increase due to cleaning costs that they will have to pay to be able to sell their carrots as fodder.
The noted area for carrots in 2017 is 6510 hectare, around 2 percent less than in 2016.