>>10768296In 2017, open field vegetable production managed to surpass the harvests of the previous two years, with a total harvest of 4,583.3 thousand tonnes. But in 2018 however, their harvest was 10% lower than in 2017. This can mainly be attributed to drought. The estimate for 2018 open field vegetable production is 4.1 million tonnes. Vegetables mainly impacted by the drought were onions (575 thousand tonnes, 15% lower harvest than 2017 and substantially lower than the average of 2014-2017 of 629.6 thousand tonnes). In addition to a lower harvest, the quality of the onions was also of lower quality. In 2018 there was also a lower harvest for carrots (-12%), beets (-11%), cabbage (-10%) as compared to 2017. But this total harvest of 2018 is still higher than in 2015, when agriculture was also faced with a long lasting drought. In general, there was a downward trend from 2005-2018 in the total harvest of open field vegetables in Poland (especially with regard to cabbage (2.5% decrease per annum), carrots, beetroots and onions).
The harvest of vegetables grown under cover increased by 4% in 2018, and has steadily been increasing since 2005, with about 58%. Also in 2018, the harvests saw an increase for all categories of vegetables grown under cover. The harvest of tomatoes was 671 thousand tonnes (+4.3% compared to 2017), cucumbers amounted to 311 thousand tonnes (+5.6% compared to 2017) and the miscellaneous category (with vegetables such as red bell pepper, celery or lettuce) also saw an increase of 2.5% to 188 thousand tonnes. In general, over the years 2005-2018, there were more vegetables grown under cover (on average 4.3% increase per annum).
