Producers from Sinaloa have been forced to store thirty thousand tons of potatoes, so far, in response to the low prices that prevail for the product at a national level.
Filiberto Cadena Payan, the president of the Potato Special Section of the agricultural private sector, said that they would market the product when the harvests slow down and demand for the product stabilizes again at the national level.
Crop progress
He said that the entity had practically finished harvesting all of its potato production, as there are only 800 hectares (out of the 14 thousand hectares planted during the fall-winter 2016-2017 cycle), left to be collected; which would be finalised, at the latest, during the next 10 days. Thus, producers are confident that the harvest will be completed by the end of this month.
The 2017 potato production was characterized by good conditions - due to good weather conditions and a low presence of pests and diseases.
He said they would market the produce, which they were temporarily withdrawing from the market, once producers were able achieve prices that would cover the high costs of production, and are confident that they can obtain a profit margin that would enable them to continue in this valuable, but risky activity.
Potatoes for industry
Cadena Payan said that, in parallel to the 30 thousand tons of potatoes stored for the domestic market, they also had another 70 thousand tons stored in warehouses, which have already been sold to the national processing industry. Their strategy, he said, was to keep them in storage and move them according to the production necessities of the industry.
Moderating plantings
The delegate of the Potato Product Systema in Sinaloa insisted that the sector needed to moderate the sowing of this crop for next year. The sector currently has 14 thousand hectares devoted to spuds, which is a very big area for this production, and as long as producers do not self-regulate they will run the risk of having market problems.
Source: debate.com.mx