Article courtesy of Cedric Porter, World Potato Markets
World potato production in 2025 is likely to have been at a record volume, nearing 400 million tonnes with large volumes in a number of key countries.
Global figures for 2024 are only now available, with the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation’s statistical agency putting world production at 390.429 million tonnes that year, 1.0% more than 2023 and 6.0% more than in 2014. The global area was calculated to be 0.5% more than 2023 at 17.076 million hectares, a 5.3% drop on the 2014 area. Average yields rose by 0.5% to 22.9 tonnes/hectare, a gain of 12.2% on the decade before.
The greatest percentage gains in production in 2024 were in South America, Oceania, Caribbean and Central America – up 9.1%, 8.8%, 6.9 and 6.5% respectively. Oceania saw the largest increase in area – up 7.3%, with a 4.5% increase in Central America and 2.7% increase in South America.
Asia accounted for 52.6% of production and 54.1% of the harvested area. Europe and North America both saw a decline in area in 2024, but there was a bounce back in the European area in 2025. The Africa area was up 0.6% to 2.216 million hectares but production fell 0.2% to 34.199 million tonnes.
North America and Oceania were the only two regions where average yields were above 40 tonnes a hectare, with the average North American yield at 48.2 tonnes/hectare. The Oceania yield was up 1.5% to 42.7t/ha. The biggest jump in yields was in the Caribbean where they increased by 6.2%, with South American yields 6.2% higher. African yields fell 0.8%, with a 0.2% drop in Asian yields.
Global potato yields have increased by 8.8% in the decade to 2024 to 22.9t/ha. That compared to a 6.4% increase in rice yields to 4.8t/ha, a 14.0% increase in soya yields to 2.6t/ha, a 19.2% increase in wheat yields to 3.7t/ha and a 17.9% increase in corn yields.
The global area of potatoes fell by 5.3% to 17.1 million hectares in the past 10 years, with a 0.6% drop in wheat area to 219.5 million hectares. The world rice area was up 5.1% to 172.4 million hectares, with a 12.7% increase in world corn area to 210.0 million hectares and a 21.8% increase in world soya production to 143.2 million hectares. The world population increased by 10.6% in the 10 years to 2024, so only corn and soya outstripped the increase in population, with potatoes falling the furthest behind.
There was little change in the list of largest potato producing nations. China produced over 33 million tonnes more than its nearest rival India, although Chinese output was up by only 1.2% compared to a 7.1% increase in Indian production. The UN figures show Ukraine as the third largest producer of potatoes at 21.4 million tonnes, but the war in the country makes those figures difficult to verify. Russian production was the largest since 2020 according to the figures, but they were still behind the US.
Germany and France saw a significant increase in production in 2024 and that has been repeated in 2025, with French output above 10 million tonnes for the first time ever. Of the top 10 producers, four are in Asia (China, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) one in Asia/Europe (Turkey) four in European (Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France), one in North America (USA) and one in Africa (Egypt).