EU potato production: downward trend but uptick in 2023

In 2023, 48.3 million tonnes of potatoes were harvested in the EU, a slight increase compared with 2022 when 47.5 million tonnes were harvested.

However, there has been a long-term decline in the harvested production of potatoes; the level of production in 2023 was 27.9 million tonnes less than in 2000, equivalent to a fall of 36.7%.

This information comes from a detailed Statistics Explained article published by Eurostat today, which looks at those EU farms producing potatoes, the production of and prices for potatoes, as well as trade in potatoes.

At country level, Germany was the largest producer of potatoes in the EU in 2023 (11.6 million tonnes, 24.0% of the EU total), followed by France (17.9%) and the Netherlands (13.4%). Together, these 3 EU countries accounted for a majority (55.4%) of the harvested production of potatoes in the EU in 2023.

Source dataset: apro_cpsh1

Few EU farms produce organic potatoes

There were 9.1 million farms in the EU in 2020, of which 1.0 million farms produced potatoes.

In 2020, 25 000 farms in the EU produced potatoes according to organic production methods. This represented only 2.5% of all farms producing potatoes. Austria had the highest share of farms producing potatoes organically (25.6%).

Source dataset: af_lus_allcrops