Editor’s note: According to the United Potato Growers of Canada, the province of Quebec is disputing the figures registered by its provincial statistical group to Statistics Canada both in the number of planted acres and the resulting estimated potato production. As of Friday, Dec. 9, UPGC is working with a all parties to resolve the issue. Potatoes in Canada will update figures accordingly should new figures be registered with StatsCan.
Canadian growers harvested a second consecutive record potato crop in 2022, as production rose 0.8 per cent year over year to 123.0 million hundredweight due to slight increases in both seeded area and yield.
Alberta (up 8.9 per cent to 26.8 million hundredweight) and Manitoba (up 4.9 per cent to 26.1 million hundredweight) both reported record production, as seeded areas rose to meet growth in processing demand. Alberta (21.8 per cent) produced the largest share of Canadian potatoes, followed by Prince Edward Island (21.6 per cent) and Manitoba (21.3 per cent).
In 2022, seeded area was up 0.9 per cent from 2021 to 386,591 acres nationally, a result of continued demand for processing potatoes. Seeded area increases in Alberta (up 6.8 per cent), Quebec (up 5.5 per cent) and Manitoba (up 3.2 per cent) offset decreases in Prince Edward Island (down 2.7 per cent), British Columbia (down 20.0 per cent) and Ontario (down 3.0 per cent).
Favourable weather conditions during the harvest season allowed Canadian producers to harvest the vast majority (98.7 per cent) of the total seeded area. Compared with 2021, harvested area was up 0.5 per cent to 381,451 acres, a reflection of the increase in seeded area.
Nationally, the average yield increased to 322.4 hundredweight per acre in 2022, up 0.2 per cent from the previous year. Despite unfavourable growing conditions at times, the average yield was up in Western Canada, as well as Prince Edward Island. Alberta (up 3.6 per cent) continued to report the highest average yield at 375.9 hundredweight per acre, followed by Manitoba (up 3.2 per cent to 329.8 hundredweight per acre) and New Brunswick (down 5.9 per cent to 329.5 hundredweight per acre). The average yield in Prince Edward Island (up 0.9 per cent) increased to a record 324.8 hundredweight per acre.