IRISH POTATOES are being exported for the first time in decades following a bumper harvest here and poor growing conditions over most of Europe, the Teagasc National Potato seminar in Carlow heard yesterday.
Barry Delany, a Department of Agriculture inspector said potatoes had already been exported to many places in the EU and special plant health inspections were now being carried out to meet the requirements for the Russian market.
He said it was expected up to 16,000 tonnes of Irish “ware” or eating potatoes would go to Russia and some of the other Eastern European states which had poor harvests because of bad weather.
“While Ireland has had a long tradition of exporting seed potatoes very few people can remember the last time Ireland exported ware potatoes and this is a novel development,” he said.
John Petit, a Teagasc tillage expert said there had been a remarkable potato crop this year bearing in mind there had been a 3 per cent decline in the area planted (11,454 hectares).
“The yields from the Rooster crop averaged 43.2 tonnes per hectare which was a 28 per cent increase on the 2009 crop and an 8 per cent increase on the 2003-2010 average,” he said. He added that there was a similar increase in yield for the Kerr’s Pink crop.
Mr Petit said this had been achieved mainly by the weather conditions which were very good at the time of planting. There was also less potato blight this year.
He also told growers from across the country that there had been a shift in the potato market and consumption was in decline over the last decade.
But the most marked change was in the demand from consumers for smaller pack sizes containing washed, high-quality potatoes and it was up to the producers to meet this demand.
He said in the past, 72 per cent of the potatoes sold here were in bags of 10kg or over but now consumers were demanding packs under 5kg and this sector now represented 65 per cent of purchases according to Bord Bia research.