In 2009 the potato production in France covered an area of 164,000 hectares and produced 7.2 million tonnes, making it the world's tenth largest potato producer. The average yield was 43.8 tonnes per hectare. Potatoes account for a modest 0.9% of arable land in France (including French overseas departments), compared with 51.5% for cereals and 2% for industrial beet. Some 25,000 farmers are involved. Since 1960 French potato production has fallen sharply, when it reached an all-time high of 14 million tonnes. At the same time, average yields have almost tripled. This trend in production reflects that of consumption, which has declined in parallel, notably due to the potato's poor nutritional image. The consumption, estimated in 2007 at 65 kg per inhabitant per year, has also evolved, with fresh potatoes now accounting for only two-thirds of average consumption, the remainder being used in processed products, in particular frozen French fries, consumption of which has grown largely with the expansion of fast-food chains. In the European Union, France, with 11% of the Community total, is the fourth largest potato producer behind Germany (10.7 Mt) and Poland (10.5 Mt), at roughly the same level as the Netherlands, and ahead of the United Kingdom. It is also Europe's third-largest exporter, behind the Netherlands and Germany, with 3 Mt, three-quarters of which are fresh potatoes exported mainly to Spain, Italy, Portugal and Belgium . Imports total 1.6 Mt, three-quarters of which are processed products. The main production regions are located in the northern half of the country: Nord-Pas-de-Calais (38% of the French total), Picardie (23%), Champagne-Ardenne and Haute-Normandie. Most processing plants and starch factories are located in these regions.
History The potato, first discovered among the Incas in present-day Peru by the Spanish conquistadors around 1537, probably arrived in France towards the end of the 16th century. The first mention of its cultivation in France comes from the agronomist Olivier de Serres in his Théâtre d'Agriculture et mesnage des champs, which describes its cultivation and gives it as originating in Switzerland:This shrub," says Cartoufle, "bears fruit of the same name, similar to truffles, & by some so called. It came from Switzerland to Dauphiné a short time ago.The Swiss naturalist Gaspard Bauhin, in his Pinax theatri botanici published in 1623, mentions that the potato was cultivated in Burgundy. While it had spread to Ireland, Flanders and Germany, for over two centuries the potato was used in much of France only for cattle feed. In 1757, the potato was cultivated in Brittany, which was experiencing a famine. First in the Rennes region by Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, soon followed in the Léon region by monseigneur de la Marche, nicknamed "l'évêque des patates" (eskob ar patatez). Jean-François Mustel, an agronomist from Rouen (author of a Mémoire sur les pommes de terre et sur le pain économique), encouraged potato cultivation in Normandy: in 1766, potatoes were grown in Alençon, Lisieux and the bay of Mont Saint-Michel. In 1768, a certain Dottin, postmaster at Villers-Bretonneux, sent M. Dupleix, intendant of Picardie, an eight-page memoir on the cultivation and use of potatoes, a document preserved by the Archives départementales de la Somme. These trials were probably one of the factors that prompted Parmentier to launch his campaign in favor of potatoes.
It was above all Antoine Parmentier who, on his return from captivity in Prussia, promoted the potato for human consumption and succeeded in developing its use in all strata of French society. Taken prisoner by the Prussians during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), he had discovered the potato, the main food supplied to prisoners. Following a terrible food shortage in 1769, the Besançon academy launched a competition in 1771 on the following theme: "Indicate the plants that could replace those commonly used for human consumption in the event of a shortage, and how they should be prepared. Parmentier won first prize, ahead of other competitors who had also written a thesis on the potato, proof that its use was really on the agenda. More than a century before Parmentier, thanks to Jean Bauhin (1541–1612), brother of Gaspard Bauhin and director of the "Grands-Jardin" in Montbéliard, the potato was used to alleviate the famine in the independent Comté de Montbéliard, which became French in 1793. That very year, "potatoes were considered so indispensable that a Commune decree dated 21 Ventôse ordered a census of luxury gardens to devote them to the cultivation of this vegetable; as a result, the grand allée of the Tuileries Garden and the flower beds were cultivated with potatoes, which for a long time gave them the nickname of royal oranges, in memory of the restoration that had made them so useful". Subsequently, Parmentier succeeded in obtaining the support of the authorities to encourage the population to eat potatoes. In particular, he used a famous stratagem: he had a (light) guard posted around a potato field, giving local residents the impression that potatoes were a rare and expensive crop, destined only for the nobility. Some stole them, cooked them and enjoyed them. King Louis XVI congratulated him, saying: "One day, France will thank you for having invented bread for the poor". Their use in popular cuisine grew rapidly. At the end of the 18th century, 45 km2 of France were devoted to potato cultivation. A century later, in 1892, this area had increased to 14,500 km2. Shortly before the French Revolution, the agronomist Jean Chanorier developed this crop on his land in Croissy-sur-Seine.
In France, on 25 Nivôse An II (13 January 1794), the Convention, faced with insufficient wheat requisitions and riots, passed the law on potato cultivation, which called for the widespread cultivation of potatoes throughout the country. Article 1 of this law stipulates that:"The constituted authorities are required to use all means in their power in communes where potato cultivation has not yet been established, to encourage all farmers in these communes to plant a portion of their land with potatoes, according to their ability.
Production trends and structure
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