Blackleg and tuber soft rot caused by soft rot Pectobacteriaceae (SRP) are among the most important diseases of potato both for seed and ware potato production. SRP may affect the potato economy in many ways: by affecting the yield at harvest, by inducing soft rot on tubers, or by generating losses and additional expenses during the certification process of seed potatoes. The economic impact of SRP for the entire potato production scheme has not previously been estimated. This chapter provides estimations of the losses due to SRP in a Swiss case study, as well as an extrapolation of these estimations to the entire European potato production system. The overall loss for the European potato sector each year is estimated at 46 M euro, with high variability among years. The seed potato sector accounts for 32% of the losses, the table potato sector for 43%, and the processing potato sector for 25% of the losses. The impact per hectare is the highest for the seed potato sector with 2.5-fold more losses than for the table potato sector, while the processing potato sector is 2.9-fold less affected than the latter.
