The British Potato Council’s (BPC) provisional estimate of calculated end-December stocks is down 14 per cent from the 2002 figure.
The total tonnage for home crop supplies of potatoes in Great Britain is 2.877 million tonnes, 2.7 per cent down on the total three years ago.
Crop utilisation from harvest 2003 to end-December 2003 is estimated at 3.106mt, which is 252,000 tonnes below the five-year average (1998-2002) of 3.358mt. The BPC’s final estimate of total production in Great Britain is 5.768mt, which is 10.2 per cent below the five-year average of 6.420mt.
The BPC’s seed use and field production survey has been used to measure field leavings, and to provide the final estimate of total production. The crop check weighing survey provides an estimate of the total biological yield and to calculate the harvested yield, field leavings are deducted. The higher field leavings for 2003 are at 15.4 per cent compared to 14.3 per cent in 2002. This reflects the increase in smaller sized tubers present in the 2003 crop and the difficult soil conditions which occurred throughout much of the autumn harvest period.
The BPC has responded to industry requests and is publishing end-December potato stocks within four weeks of the month end. This adds to the market information available to potato businesses at this time of year.
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