Change in Weather Causes Increase in Demand for Potatoes

Demand has picked up over the past few days, due to the return of more normal weather conditions.

Homeguard, is now virtually cleared with Premier in the southern areas also finishing this week.

More premier has been dug in the east and is moving easily at over €600 per tonne box. As predicted, there has been a shortage of available queen this week, as growers wait for the March plantings to reach maturity.

A recent IFA survey shows a reduction of 15% in early plantings this year and this reflects the findings of the DAFM provisional estimates on crop area. There is now approximately 20% of the early crop area harvested which is significantly more than the 7% which was cleared at this time last year. Movement of old season crop has resumed this week following the very warm spell and, with much of the industry needing this crop for another 8 weeks at least, there will be no issue moving the remaining stock.