Romania's potato harvest estimate falls below 15 tons per hectare

Romanian potato growers have not been lucky in terms of yields in the past two years. In 2021 and 2022, they still achieved 16.5 to 17 tonnes of potatoes per hectare. Last year, the harvest was stuck at 14 tonnes per hectare. This year, it initially looked like yields in Romania would return to 16 tonnes, but drought and heat have thrown a spanner in the works. According to the latest estimate from the European Union's crop monitoring committee, the average harvest on around 78,000 hectares of potatoes is stuck at 14.8 tonnes. This makes Romania the fourth country in the European Union where the seasons are red in terms of potato yields. The European Commission previously reported in the monthly Mars report that yields in the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece will be lower than normal. For the Netherlands, the Mars report reports a harvest expectation of 39.5 tonnes per hectare. This is an average of all potatoes, including seed potatoes and starch potatoes. The estimate for the ...