Global Trends

Potato News Today names its 2025 ‘Potato Word of the Year’

December 12, 2025

Potato News Today’s 2025 “Potato Word of the Year” is resilience – not as a slogan, but as the practical requirement for staying profitable and stable in a tougher era. The editorial traces how resilience showed up across the potato system: soil performance and “tired” fields, climate volatility, shifting pest and disease dynamics, higher-stakes storage management, energy and compliance pressures, and oversupply-driven market stress. Runner-up words include transition, whiplash, saturation/glut, and deadpan.

Less land, higher prices: New report maps the future of Europe’s potato sector

December 6, 2025

A new IndexBox report forecasts modest growth in Europe’s potato volumes but stronger gains in market value through 2035. Consumption and production remain concentrated in a handful of key countries, while harvested area continues to shrink, offset by higher yields. Intra-European trade is expanding, led by Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and rising import and export prices are expected to drive most of the market’s future value growth.

Potatoes on tired ground: The hidden cost of keeping yields high at any price

December 5, 2025

On World Soil Day 2025, this article examines the rise of “tired” or “deadpan” soils in intensive potato systems. It traces how decades of petro-fertilizer use, short rotations and heavy tillage have weakened soil structure and biology, increasing reliance on synthetic inputs. The piece highlights emerging responses – from cover crops and organic amendments to smarter fertilizer use and soil health testing – and outlines what healthier potato soils could realistically look like by 2035.

Urban soils, rural spuds: Linking World Soil Day to the potato chain

December 4, 2025

World Soil Day 2025, themed “Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities”, turns the spotlight on urban and peri-urban land – where future growth in potato demand and production increasingly meet. This piece links FAO’s global soil campaign to the potato sector’s realities, highlighting why resilient soils underpin yield, quality, storage performance and environmental compliance, and suggesting concrete ways growers and industry can use World Soil Day as a catalyst for action.

The ‘Potato Without Borders’: Why the world’s most efficient crop is still underused

December 3, 2025

This article argues that potatoes are one of the world’s most efficient yet underused crops. It highlights their role across fresh, processed, ingredient and industrial markets, from baby potatoes to starch, flour, protein and bioplastics. It notes that underutilization persists even in North America and outlines what must change – breeding, infrastructure, biorefineries and storytelling – to position potatoes as a true platform crop for food, feed and sustainable industry.

Coal, gas, wind, and fries: Inside the global potato industry’s quiet energy transition

November 28, 2025

This article explores how the shift from old energy – coal, oil, gas – to new energy – wind, solar, biomass, biogas – is reshaping the potato industry from field to fryer. It explains how fossil fuel dependence drives fertilizer, irrigation, storage and processing costs, and highlights examples of renewables and efficiency upgrades that cut risk, emissions and volatility while strengthening resilience and competitiveness across the global potato supply chain.

Pressure remains on European fry prices, but nothing dramatic

November 27, 2025

French fry exports from EU-27 countries fell 5% in September 2025, totaling 148,500 tonnes, attributing significant drops to the UK and Asian markets. Conversely, African exports increased by 30%. Price pressure intensified; the average cost declined to €1,115 per tonne, a 10% drop. Notably, France saw a 12% export increase due to higher production capacity, while Belgium’s figures fell 5.8% over the year.

From gut feel to good data: The quiet digital shift in potato fields and storages

November 24, 2025

This feature explores how potato growers worldwide are quietly adopting digital tools – from yield maps and late blight decision support to smart storage sensors and emerging AI analytics. Rather than replacing intuition, these systems act as a second opinion, sharpening decisions in fields and storages while highlighting real barriers like connectivity, cost and data ownership. The result is a gradual, global shift from gut feel to good data, with farmer judgement still in charge.

Rising prices, shifting trade: EU frozen potato market edges higher as demand, trade and prices climb

November 24, 2025

IndexBox’s latest report shows the European Union frozen potato market continuing to grow steadily through 2035, with modest volume gains but stronger value growth driven by higher prices. Germany, France and the Netherlands lead consumption, while Belgium and the Netherlands dominate production and exports. Romania emerges as the fastest-growing market. Trade volumes remain high and both import and export prices hit record levels in 2024, with further increases expected.

Potato processing power: How China’s emerging industry could reshape the world of fries and chips

November 23, 2025

A new review in the journal Foods by a team of Chinese scientists maps the global potato-processing industry through a Chinese lens. It contrasts high-processing regions in Europe and North America with China’s fast-growing but still underdeveloped sector. The authors detail product streams, technology gaps, sustainability pressures and policy drivers, arguing that automation, branding and greener processing will decide who captures future value in fries, chips, flakes and starch.

When the weather turns hostile: How climate change is supercharging potato pests and diseases

November 23, 2025

Heat, humidity and shifting weather patterns are reshaping the pest and disease risk map for potatoes. Warmer seasons mean more insect generations, changing late and early blight windows, and the spread of “southern” threats like zebra chip, tuber moth and bacterial wilt into new regions. The article explores how these pressures collide in fields and storages, and how growers are adapting with scouting, varieties, storage design and climate risk management.

One crop, many futures: Imagining Canada’s potato industry in 2040

November 22, 2025

This feature takes a grounded look at what Canada’s potato industry could look like by 2040, drawing on current data, climate models, technology pipelines and market signals. It explores climate adaptation, breeding for resilience, smarter automation on farms and in storages, and diversification into new food and industrial markets. The piece highlights which decisions around water, R&D, carbon, contracts and skills in the 2020s will most directly shape those futures.

Potatoes and climate-smart farming: A global story that is still taking shape

November 22, 2025

Potato growers are often seen as lagging behind corn and soybean farmers on climate-smart practices, yet the reality is more complex. This feature compares adoption trends across major potato regions, from North America and Europe to Asia, Africa and Latin America, and unpacks the structural, market and agronomic reasons behind the perceived gap. It highlights emerging leaders, processor and retailer pressure, and where potatoes may actually be ahead on resilience.

New report: Processing demand and climate resilience steer global potato market to 2030

November 22, 2025

Mordor Intelligence’s new Potato Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends and Forecast (2025 – 2030) values the global potato commodity market at USD 120 billion in 2025, rising to about USD 145 billion by 2030. The study highlights steady, processing-led growth, with Asia-Pacific as the largest market and Africa the fastest-growing. Contract farming, climate-smart breeding, improved storage and emerging industrial uses for potato by-products all shape the market’s trajectory.