Improving trend in domestic potato production: prices have fallen exceptionally in the past year

In 2024, the volume of crop production in our country was 11% lower than the previous year, but the volume change of potatoes shows an increase of 3.7%. This is particularly positive, since the volume of the total potato harvest already showed an improvement in 2023, thus breaking a negative trend that had lasted for several years.

“In light of the data, it can be said that the volume of potatoes has been on a positive path in the past 2 years and is now showing an improving trend,”

– said Dr. Gerda Anikó, a plant specialist at Vitafer Hungária Kft. consultant.

There was room for improvement in the production volume, since examining the national data, the total amount of potato harvested in our country decreased year by year from 2015 until 2022, i.e. for 8 years. While in 2011, 600,123 tons of potatoes were harvested in Hungary, by 2022 this amount had decreased to 199,212 tons, and then in 2023 it began to change in a positive direction.

“It did not take a decade for the amount of potatoes produced in our country to decrease by one third. In fact, the harvested amount even exceeded 8-900 thousand tons in the early 2000s. And the decrease was extreme”

– emphasized the consultant of Vitafer Hungária Kft. It can therefore be said that the improvement of recent years is positive, but domestic agriculture still needs to correct a significant decline. Fortunately, however, there was no significant potato shortage, which may have been contributed to by the accession to the European Union in 2004 and changes in market demands.