Slight increase in EU potato production last year despite long-term decline 

There has been a long-term decline in the harvested production of potatoes in the EU.

The EU saw a slight increase in the production of potatoes in 2023.

Last year, 48.3m tonnes of potatoes were harvested in the EU, compared with 2022 when 47.5m tonnes were harvested, according to Eurostat.

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

At country level, Germany was the largest producer of potatoes in the EU in 2023 (11.6m tonnes, 24% of the EU total), followed by France (17.9%) and the Netherlands (13.4%). 

Together, these three countries accounted for a majority (55.4%) of the harvested production of potatoes in the EU in 2023.

There were 9.1m farms in the EU in 2020, of which 1m farms produced potatoes.

In 2020, Ireland had one of the lowest number of farms producing potatoes, at 960. 

In the same year, 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.

2023 was a very difficult year for Irish potato growers, who battled weather events that resulted in poor harvest conditions and lower yields. 

According to the CSO, the production of potatoes dropped from 368,000 tonnes in 2022 to 322,200 tonnes in 2023, based on a 3.3% reduction in the area sown and a 9.5% fall in the yield per hectare.