Country has 163m KGs potatoes in stock

In the middle of October, farms had 204 million kilos of food and food-industry potatoes in stock, of which food potatoes accounted for 163 million kilos, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

As the high harvest level compensated for the decreased potato area, total potato stocks were at the same level as in the autumn of 2019. There were two million kilos of food potatoes less in stock than in autumn 2019.

Overall, the summer of 2020 offered fairly good conditions for the growing of potatoes, while occasional heavy rains in August and during harvesting made it more difficult to harvest potatoes at the correct time. Furthermore, this autumn was unusually warm, and frost damage was rare.

“Increases in heavy rains set new requirements for the growing of potatoes. The fertility of the soil and the functioning of drainage are particularly important factors. Warm and wet autumns present other challenges, making it more difficult to cool potato stocks and dry harvests”, said Luke Senior Statistician Anna-Kaisa Jaakkonen.

Three-quarters of the total volume of food potato stocks, or 124 million kilos, were in stocks located in the regions of ELY Centres of Ostrobothnia. Compared with the previous year, this volume is one million kilos smaller.

The total area of food and food-industry potatoes decreased by 342 hectares form the previous year on farms included in the statistical survey. Of this, the food potato area was 297 hectares.

According to information provided by the Finnish Customs, a total of 0.9 million kilos of food potatoes were imported into Finland in August, mainly from Denmark.

According to the statistics of producer prices for agricultural products, the producer price increased from EUR 18.28 per 100 kilos in August to EUR 19.15 per 100 kilos in September. The potato quality was at the previous autumn’s level in September. Viruses may reduce the quality of potato stocks.