No more cheap potatoes?

alandbailey

Desiree seem to be be hard to find, then they are very expensive.
Why aren't the growers growing more of these? I prefer a waxy potato to the floury ones which disintegrate when boiled.
I will be growing my own, also Charlotte, Anya, Lady Christal and perhaps Swift. In Somerset I have had potato blight and tomato blight for the past few years - but the farm shops seem to sell mainly floury white spuds.
I wish to grow organically, but will use chemicals if it means the difference between a reasonable harvest or nothing.

julietiff

lindseykim13 wrote: »

lidl do i sack of 7.5kg for £3 somthing i saw yesterday

We have been buying theese for the past few months,
good all rounders:)

SNOOP

SpudMan wrote: »

Hello all, first post for me.

After reading geordie joe's laughable post I felt compelled to register and bring some truth to this topic.

It's correct that many potatoes are imported in to the UK every year from countries such as France, Israel, Egypt and Morocco.

But to say that rising prices in the supermarkets has nothing to do with this years poor harvest is quite frankly ridiculous. The UK produces around 6 million tons of potatoes per annum and supplements this with around 1 million tons of foreign imports.

The 2012 UK potato crop produced closer to 4 million tons. This was caused by several factors. 2011 saw a severe drought with soil moisture deficits (SMD) reaching over 80mm. Quite simply this meant that on average arable land across the UK was very very dry and needed around 10 inches of rain to return it to the correct SMD.Along with the irrigation reservoirs were mostly below 30% full.

So the 2013 crop was planted in desert like conditions into soil that was too dry and had little chance of being restored to a suitable SMD via over ground irrigation.

Then the rain began!!!! Some area's of the UK saw upwards of 30 inches of rain over the potato growing season. Land which was previously so dry cannot suddenly accomodate so much water. It is thought that as much as 30% of the UK crop was lost due to land flooding. (a large percentage of this land was re planted at the farmers expense)

So now we've got land with water lying on it, with nowhere to go and rising temperatures as we approach the summer. The plants have now begun to grow creating their own micro climate beneath the canopy. This now means that on any day above say 20 degrees we've got what is known as a "Full Smith Period". This means the plants are likely to contract leaf blight. In simple terms leaf blight damages the plant and leaves to a degree that photo synthesis is restricted. Lack of photo synthesis means that nutrients from the plant are not passed down to the tubers below and therefor either less tubers are born, or the ones that are there do not grow as they usually would. With such intense pressure from these Smith Period's farmers have no choice but to increase there blight supressant programme. (spray the field with blight spray) Blight sprays were being applied on all potato crops every 2-3 days for over 2 months. I won't bore you with figures but the cost of this is astronomical.

So now the farmers have harvested their spuds and are looking to recoup some of the cost they have faced over the season. In 2011 the average price of a ton of potatoes at time of harvest was £100 per ton. In 2012 that figure was £350. Meaning that merchants and packers are having to pay large sums of money to by enough crop to fulfil orders from the supermarkets. This cost (slowly) gets passed on to the supermarket so inevitably they increase the price in the shop.

The position I work in provides me with enough information to be able to tell you that yes, potato prices in store will return to where they were before once the market price allows for this. (2014 I'm afraid)

You will continue to see imported potatoes for years to come. This has nothing to do with them being cheaper for the supermarkets, in fact they cost considerably more what with haulage and import duty to be paid on them. It is purely down to the fact that certain lines cannot be in store 12 months a year from the UK crop. Salad potatoes for example. They grow between March and June, are harvested and in store immediately. By the time March comes they have deteriorated in store to a level that you simply wouldn't want to buy the,. So imports have to cover the gap until the UK crop is ready again.

I hope some of you find this useful. If anyone would like to know anything else to do with potatoes, or any other crop then I'll be more than happy to help with factual answers rather then the ones I read above.

Thanks, SpudMan

LOL you really know your potatoes!!!

Saint_Chris

just paid £2 for 7.5kg of pots from farmfoods.


used them for chips yesterday, very nice, and they also made nice roasties today.