NAPSO Warns: Strengthening El Niño Puts Potato Storage Economics Under Pressure

A new NAPSO bulletin says the intensifying 2026–27 El Niño — Niño 3.4 at +2.1°C and an 83% probability of historically exceptional strength — could raise refrigeration costs and shrink marketable returns for North American potato storage operators.

Текст (EN)

The North America Potato Storage Organization (NAPSO) has published a pre-webinar bulletin examining what the strengthening 2026–27 El Niño could mean for potato storage management and economics — long after the 2026 harvest is in the shed.

The climate signal is unusually strong. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center reported on 8 October that El Niño had strengthened further, with the Niño 3.4 index reaching +2.1°C. NOAA now places the probability of the October–December event reaching historically exceptional strength at 83%, up from 75% in September. The World Meteorological Organization separately forecasts the event will keep intensifying toward a December peak and will probably persist through February 2027.

For storage operators, the most important translation is temperature. Warmer-than-normal seasonal conditions across many northern production regions could reduce the number of hours in which ambient air provides economical cooling — potentially increasing refrigeration, ventilation and electricity requirements through the storage season. Precipitation patterns remain less certain and could produce contrasting harvest and storage challenges across regions.

NAPSO is careful about the limits of seasonal forecasting: outlooks describe probabilities over large regions, not guaranteed local outcomes. The bulletin tells operators to base decisions on the condition of individual lots, local weather and building data — listing incoming pulp temperature, hydration, bruising, disease incidence, humidity, shrink, dormancy progression and refrigeration demand as the factors to monitor closely.

Translated into a storage calendar, the bulletin is asking operators to treat this winter as an active management period rather than a pause between harvest and sale. Incoming pulp temperature dictates how hard refrigeration must work during pull-down; hydration and bruising at loading set the ceiling on a lot’s storage life; disease incidence and humidity determine how aggressively air must be moved through the pile; and dormancy progression fixes the window in which sprout-control decisions have to be made. Each of those decisions carries a cost — and in a mild winter there is less free cooling from outside air to offset it.

The economic argument goes beyond the electricity bill. The bulletin, published ahead of NAPSO’s planned 19 November webinar on the Economics of Storage, stresses that bruising, disease, shrink, quality downgrades, sprout control and shortened storage life can all reduce the quantity and value of marketable potatoes — and that a warm winter amplifies several of them at once. The full bulletin, “El Niño and Potato Storage: What the 2026–27 Season Could Mean for Storage Economics,” is available on the NAPSO website.

The warning lands as North America heads into storage season with a historically tight crop balance: the industry is bracing for the smallest U.S. potato harvest in 16 years while Canada tracks toward a record crop — a combination that makes the condition and duration of stored lots more valuable than in a normal year.

Источники

• Potato News Today, 12.10.2026 — https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2026/10/12/strong-el-nino-puts-potato-storage-economics-under-scrutiny-in-new-napso-bulletin/ (бюллетень NAPSO; NOAA 08.10: Niño 3.4 +2,1°C; вероятность 83% против 75% в сентябре; ВМО: пик в декабре, сохранение до февраля 2027; список факторов мониторинга; вебинар 19.11 «Economics of Storage»)
• Контекст по урожаю США/Канады — наша статья от 12.10.2026 (результаты/2026-10-12_статьи_20/20_canada_harvest_record_forecast.md, по Boerenbusiness)

Открытые вопросы

• Сам бюллетень NAPSO размещён на napso.info; сайт при проверке 11–12.10 был недоступен — прямая сверка текста бюллетеня не выполнена (needs clarification).
• Региональные карты вероятностей температуры/осадков NOAA по картофельным штатам в материале не приведены.
• Численные оценки дополнительных затрат на электроэнергию — не даны (качественная оценка).

Отметка комплаенса

Сверено по стоп-листу «Уралхим» (16 компаний, бренды, дилеры) 15.10.2026: совпадений нет — чисто. Компании и бренды списка не упоминаются.