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THE PRICE OF potatoes dropped significantly in the year up to this October.
The Central Statistics Office has released its annual agricultural output price index – those goods produced on Ireland’s farms – and noted a 28.8 per cent drop for potatoes year-on-year.
Statistician Susan O’Connor told TheJournal.ie that the price would have been abnormally high in September of last year when supply of potatoes was down but demand still high.
However, after this year’s good harvest, the supply of potatoes on the market is much higher and that’s why the price has “stabilised”.
There is some fluctuation between months as the price index is based on both the early and main crop. There is an early harvest (May, June onwards) and a later one, which this year really started to show in the months of August and September. “It was a bit later alright, but the supply didn’t suffer the same as last year,” said O’Connor.
Cereal prices also stabilised to a similar extent and were 28.2 per cent down in October 2013 on the September of last year.
The agricultural price input index (costs of agriculture) recorded a minor drop of 1.4 per cent when October 2013 was compared with September 2013. The output index increased by half a per cent. This means that the trade index increased by 2 per cent in October 2013.
Overall, on a year-on-year basis, the agricultural output price index was up 4.5 per cent in October 2013 compared with the same time last year, and the input price index was down 2.6 per cent.
Milk and wool prices recorded particularly strong increases, by 20 per cent and 10.8 per cent.
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Haha! On my way to work, and I go to TheJournal to check news from home and I’m rewarded with the most Irish headline ever!! On a bus in Stockholm, but all I can smell now is a pot of floury spuds and butter – not those little balls of wax that Swedes call potatoes. Thank you, Susan! :-)
Glad to be of service, Dennis :)
Weird….. They are still the same price at the till.
How could that be!
cheap as chips
Q: What do you say to an angry baked potato?
A: Anything, just butter him up.
Best news all year……………….. With everything else going ass up at least Enda can claim credit that we won’t have a famine
Totally, because they’re so cheap now we should definitely rely on just potatoes, worked so well in the past
And I was just setting up a grow room to produce them every month ………………… And now they have no value
All those lights and plastic and hoses for nothing
Darragh……we didn’t just rely on potatoes in the past. Its is in fact well recorded that our diet in the mid 19th century was extremely varied.
Britain relied more on potatoes than we did and history seems to have forgotten that they had a potato blight and serious famine at the same time.
In cork and galway harbours millions if tons of food was exported to England during our so called famine!
I have asked my local politician why are we teaching our children these lies and he thought I was mad!
Look it up…..
It was a joke, jeez, lighten up
Yes, but you are leaving out what happened to the Irish when there was no spuds. Their treatment at the hands of the landed gentry is well documented too so don’t forget to look that up too!!
SF has just claimed credit for cheaper potatoes! The party’s agriculture comrade said he was not jumping on the the potato bandwagon, he that they used old & well tried tactics to force prices down! President for life Gerry said nobody mashes with SF!
I might apply for a rebate …. He he
Well said, I said it too my teacher friends and also they were unaware, our potatoes, livestock, harvest , were sent to the UK and to places were the UK were involved in raiding countries for wealth (oh sorry to liberate the people) much like today.
It’s called economics. Landlords (who were mostly Irish) exported agricultural goods to make a living. The poor in rural areas depended almost exclusively on the potato crop, with that failing they had nothing to eat or sell. There were actually extensive aid programmes from Britain, but the problem was compounded by many issues including poverty, agricultural practices, land tenancy etc. while Britain may have been able to do more, it’s simplistic to simply lay blame elsewhere.
Nothing like a good mash though :)
Waitin’ for Enda to claim credit for this…
I know this is off topic but I’m
In Mumbai and it’s boiling !!! :-)))
Of topic……. That’s the idea
Whatever happened to the GM frankinspuds they were “growing” hope they have not been intergrated hence the cheap prices
Don’t know what the thumbs are for they have been this in Carlow on two hectors since 2012
My source was RTE
Is that why Hector is leaving 2fm?
Up the spuds!
Mitch just because the spuds are cheap doesn’t mean the supermarkets are not taking the gravy
Or the stew!!
What’s this article got to do with the price of potatoes??
Wow that’s some spud news!
Brilliant… now as long as there’s not another famine we’re on easy street!
Good
Christmas presents sorted
Thats smashing !!
have your say