2023-06-27 00:18:29
Europe is a leader in potato cultivation, which is used to make starch, the purest starch on the market, used in the food, pharmaceutical and stationery industries. But the yields of this potato variety are down and one of the last two French starch factories is about to close.
While it had a hundred starch factories in 1945, France has only two left, and perhaps not for a long time. That of the Tereos group, located on the Haussimont site in the Marne, is about to close because it has not found a buyer.
But the news goes beyond the disappearance of a potato processing plant. It symbolizes the difficulties of a niche market, which nevertheless exports 60 million euros of starch each year.
Yields affected by drought
Frightened to see a sector disappearing quietly, the National Union of Potato Producers (UNPT) calls on the public authorities to release exceptional aid for farmers. Because if the days of the Tereos factory are numbered, it is largely because of yields which are falling under the effect of climate change.
These yields slow down industrial activity, but also discourage producers who have already had to face plummeting prices at the end of the pandemic: due to excessive stocks, the price of potato starch had then fallen under that of wheat starch and that of corn starch with an average price of 500 euros per ton for export, unheard of. It has since risen in the first quarter of 2023 to more than 1,000 euros per tonne before slowly falling.
Because there is a gap in the calendar between the current prices and the arbitrations on the surfaces to be planted, but also because the farmers are tempted to go for other more profitable spring crops, the surfaces are experiencing a drop historical: for this year 2023, forecasts show 16,000 ha sown compared to 20,000 ha last year.
A specific French sector, but until when ?
The risk, according to the UNPT, is that such a drop in surface areas will end up calling into question the very sustainability of the French sector with all its specificities. France is the only country to grow a potato only intended to be transformed into starch.
An expert summarizes: It would be an aberration to abandon our sovereignty in the sector when the sector is increasingly buoyant with applications that are developing in particular to supply the vegetable protein market. »
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