Potato production (excluding seed and starch potatoes) in the five largest potato-producing countries in the European Union is expected to decline by 14.1 per cent this year, according to Bruce Huffaker of the North American Potato Market News.
Huffaker cites the latest estimate by the North-Western Europe Potato Group (NEPG) that indicates combined production in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom is expected to total 540.1 million hundredweight in 2015. That is down 88.5 million hundredweight from year-earlier production.
According to the NEPG stats, growers planted 3.7 per cent less ground to potatoes this year, while the average yield fell 10.7 per cent to 415 hundredweight per acre.
