Oversupply of processing potatoes in North America has led to sobering contract negotiations for the 2024 crop according to Scott Howatt, processing specialist for the PEI Potato Board. Overall, contracts are down from 1.4 per cent to 3.9 per cent from 2023 values.

Writing in the spring issue of PEI Potato News, he notes, “Potato Growers of Washington have advised that individual grower volume cuts range from 10 to 70 per cent depending on the variety and the delivery period. Overall the cut in the Columbia Basin is estimated to be approximately 15 per cent. That’s because of a confluence of past events in various growing regions that resulted in “millions of hundredweight of potatoes without any home or purpose.”

The Potato Growers of Alberta settled their contracts in early February, he reports, as 1.4 per cent reductions in value combined with volume cuts ranging from flat to 20 per cent depending on the fry company.

Alberta is in a slightly more positive position where McCain Foods in expanding its Coaldale facility with plans to open in summer 2025. Cavendish Farms is also signalling that its Lethbridge plant is due for expansion in the near future.

Keystone Potato Producers’ Association in Manitoba accepted a McCain Foods offer valued down 2.5 per cent.

The New Brunswick growers and McCain Foods have not announced their agreement, nor have Québec.

While planting intentions will not be published until early July 2024, the United Potato Growers of Canada estimates that national potato acreage will decline by 1.2 per cent to 392,540 acres.

Source:  PEI Potato News Spring 2024 issue