Potato imports to Poland August-November 2020

2021-01-21 11:06

The 2020 potato harvest is expected to be around 9 million tonnes. This marks a return to relatively high levels, especially after the previous year's collapse when Polish potato production fell to just 6.6 million tonnes.

The significantly higher supply than last year translates into domestic potato prices, but also into the scale of imports of these vegetables to our country. It is significantly smaller than in the previous season, but comparable to the 2018/2019 season.

The volume of potato imports to Poland (CN category 070190 - Potatoes, fresh or chilled, except seed potatoes), according to CSO data, from the beginning of August to the end of November 2020, amounted to 4.2 thousand tonnes, and its value to PLN 6.2 million. How this compares to the two previous seasons can be seen in the charts below.

As mentioned above, the much lower autumn 2019 harvest caused a spike in potato imports to Poland. In the current season, it has returned from "normal" levels. In volume terms, in the period under review, it was 19 per cent lower than in the corresponding period of the 2018/2019 season and as much as 95.2 per cent lower than in the 2019/2020 season. In volume terms, the decrease was 18 per cent in relation to the 2018/2019 season and 92.9 per cent in relation to the 2019/2020 season, respectively.

Importantly, cumulative imports in October were higher than those of the corresponding period of the 2018/2019 season, both in volume and value terms by 21 per cent. This pointed to the declining dynamics of buying potatoes abroad this season. However, imports increased month-on-month in November.

You can see this increase on the month-by-month data. In volume terms, imports in November 2020 increased by 84.2 per cent compared to October of the same year, while value increased by 45.2 per cent. By contrast, imports in November 2020 remained well below those in November 2018, up 72.8 per cent in volume terms and 57.7 per cent in value terms.

What may come as a surprise, however, is the resulting data on the average prices of imported potatoes by month (average price as value divided by weight of imported potatoes). As can be seen from the graph opposite, there was a jump in average prices in September and October this year. They are not only much higher than the price in August this year, but higher than all quotations from the two previous years.

In November, the average import price for potatoes fell by 21.2 per cent compared to October. However, it remained significantly higher both year-on-year (+129.5 per cent) and in relation to the more comparable 2018/2019 season (+55.6 per cent).

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