Europe's Potato Area in 2026: How Much It Fell and What It Means for Growers

After the record 2025 harvest and collapsing prices, European potato growers planted far fewer potatoes in 2026. Below are the official and industry figures published up to early October 2026.

North-Western Europe: 11-14% less

The North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG), covering Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany, announced at the end of June that the ware potato area in the region fell by about 11%, from 604,100 to 536,900 ha. Later NEPG data put the spring reduction at 13.7%, to 521,500 ha, which is 82,700 ha less than in 2025. The figures are still being refined, but the direction is the same: growers answered the call to plant less.

Country by country

According to official and preliminary figures, the potato area fell by 16.6% in Belgium, 15.1% in the Netherlands and 9.7% in France. In Germany, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) forecasts 280,400 ha, which is 7.1% less than last year. Belgium's ware potato area is about 90,400 ha, the lowest in five years, and in Flanders the drop is reportedly larger, around 23%.

Poland and seed potato areas

In Poland, the potato area fell by roughly 12% according to EU data, from 210,800 to 185,200 ha. The seed potato area there dropped by 14%. The European Seed Potato Growers group (ESPG) reports that the 2026 seed multiplication area in six major regions is 105,200 ha, which is 1.6% (about 1,700 ha) less than in 2025. In the Netherlands it is 40,800 ha (0.7% less), in France 23,800 ha (2.3% less) and in Germany 20,500 ha (slightly more).

What about Lithuania

In Lithuania, the 2026 declaration of agricultural land and other areas ran from 13 April to 22 June. In total, 2.910 million ha of agricultural land was declared (2.915 million ha in 2025). We could not find a potato-only summary for 2026 that we could cite reliably. It is worth checking the latest figures in the declaration statistics of the Agricultural Data Centre.

What this means

A smaller area means smaller supply, but the final result depends on yield. In 2026 yield was hit hard by heat and drought, which we cover in the next article. The area changes themselves showed that the market reacts: when prices fall below production cost, growers plant less.