There is very little positivity around the potato sector at the moment, says Jason O’Leary, the IFA’s new potato chair.

“The biggest problem is that people are growing for a market that doesn’t exist.” He wants growers to carefully consider planting potatoes unless they have a sale agreed for them, as costs rise and sales slump.

“It cost €3-4,000 an acre to grow potatoes in 2025 according to Teagasc, but increases in input costs mean it will be €1,000 an acre more this year”. But rising costs don’t mean better prices, the market outlook is not good right now, and there is a serious overhang on the current market.

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“Thousands of tonnes of Roosters are freely available,” O’Leary says. Peeler prices have fallen sharply too, while Irish salad potatoes sales have halved because packers are importing them at lower prices.

Imports are another major problem, O’Leary says.

“The National Horticultural Strategy for 2023-2027 targeted replacing imports of chipping potatoes with domestic production. Any progress made over the last couple of years in that regard has been lost this year. Perhaps we need a plan like the minimum inclusion grain growers are pushing for.”

School dinners have been in the news lately and O’Leary thinks it’s one area that could be strategically targeted. “It would be great if the traditional, healthy food that is the potato was made a more integral part of school dinners”.

Despite the weather, progress has been made in early planting. “Down around Carne [south Wexford] there has been a good bit of early planting, if not as much as would be hoped for,” says O’Leary. “But there’s been no work done towards main crop, which we should be planting from next week in the earlier areas.”

Potatoes require deep ploughing, and land is still sodden below the top couple of inches. “We’d be ploughing at 10-12 inches, it’s going to take some serious soaking and drying for land at that depth to be dry enough to work.”

“When the weather comes, everyone will be planting at the same time,” O’Leary explains. “That means everyone will be harvesting at the same time, which inevitably leads to problems in the market.”