Germany: Potato cultivation of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern still only 14%

Although planting potatoes in April is a typical sight on the fields in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it's happening less. In 2011 the total cultivation area was around 13,600 hectares, the lowest ever. In the DDR period the area was over 100,000 hectares. Since then the area has only decreased.

The potato cultivation takes a lot of time, and high investments, which make production expensive. But the profit is highly dependent on large market swings, which means growers often have to deal with heavy loss. One grower after the other chose to switch to the cultivation of other products, such as sweetcorn. The ministry of Agriculture in Schwerin now wants to at least keep the current level. The potato cultivations is still hugely important for the agricultural economics. The plan is to support potato growers by, for instance, giving them priority for subsidies.

Norbert Mast, manager of Spantekower Agrar AG, will remain faithful to the potato. "I grew up with potatoes in this area", says the 59 year old. He has divided the risk of a varying profit into three parts. Of the around 6,000 tonnes of potatoes that are harvested at Spantekower Agrar AG, 2,000 tonnes goes to the 'Kartoffelhaus Stralsund' as consumption potatoes. Another 2,000 tonnes goes to food producer Pfanni in Stavenhagen for processing and the last 2,000 tonnes is turned into starch in the Emsland-factory in Kyritz.

Although the prices for the consumption potatoes aren't doing well at the moment, the supplying with contract prices to Pfanni and Emsland ensure that growing potatoes remains profitable for the company."Viewing the averages over four or five years, the potato cultivation has, despite the price swings, always yielded enough", according to Mast.