Wet weather hampers potato harvest, part of crop at risk of rotting
Aiga Kraukle, head of the Latvian Potato Growers and Processors Union, says this year's potato harvest is good but excessive rainfall is making it hard to bring in and risks rotting part of the crop.
Aiga Kraukle, chairwoman of the board of the Latvian Potato Growers and Processors Union, told the LETA news agency that heavy rainfall this year is severely complicating the potato harvest, even though the overall yield is satisfactory.
According to Kraukle, the main problem farmers face right now is not the size of the harvest but the physical ability to collect it — harvesting machinery simply cannot drive onto waterlogged fields and gets stuck. On her own farm, September rainfall has already reached 110 millimetres, compared with an average monthly norm of around 60–70 millimetres.
Potatoes cannot tolerate standing water
Kraukle explained that potatoes are a crop that cannot withstand prolonged wet conditions — if tubers remain in water for more than two days, a large share of them rot. Conditions vary between farms: in some places fields are so waterlogged that potatoes cannot even be reached, while others are in better shape. Still, member farms of the union across all regions of Latvia report that excess moisture is a significant problem. The exact scale of expected crop losses cannot yet be estimated, she said, since the situation could change quickly and even wetter weather is forecast.
Additional pressures — pests and rising costs
Growers are also struggling this year because effective means of controlling cockchafer larvae are still lacking, causing part of the crop to be discarded as unfit for sale due to larvae damage. On top of that, high fuel prices have pushed costs so high that potato sales revenue no longer covers expenses. Kraukle noted that growers themselves cannot raise potato prices, since prices are set by buyers — if buyers can source cheaper potatoes elsewhere, for instance in Poland, Latvian farmers will not be paid more for their harvest.
The Latvian Potato Growers and Processors Union is an association registered in 1997 that unites industry members and represents their interests before state authorities in Latvia and abroad.
