Potato harvest 2017 better than previous two years

After two weak years for potatoes, a better harvest is expected for 2017, although farmers have had to cope with weather-related problems again this season.

The better harvest is a result of the expansion of farming areas as well as higher yields per hectare. The German Committee of Experts on "Special harvest and quality assessment" stated that, based on available grubbing results, a potato harvest of about 11.3 million tons can be expected. The final result might be different than this estimation because the harvest is still ongoing and the yield per hectare could change depending on the weather conditions. Based on the current estimation, this year's harvest is 4.7 percent bigger than last year.

The potato fields are expanded every year. A reason for this is the growing demand for raw products for the production of potato products, especially fries. According to the preliminary results of the survey on land use, about 248.400 hectares of land was used to grow potatoes, which is almost 5.900 hectares or 2.4 percent more than last year.

In previous years, the ranking order of the most important farming regions did not change. At the top remains Lower Saxony with a surface area of currently 45 percent, followed by Bavaria with 17 percent and North Rhine-Westphalia with 12 percent. Lower in the rankings compared to last year were Thuringia (-8.4 percent) and Baden-Württemberg (-7.4 percent).

For all the important potato regions in North Western Europe (France, Benelux, Germany, Great Britain), better harvest results than last year are expected. This means that the food processing industry as well as consumers can choose from a wide variety of products.

Source: bmel