RE SEARCH Potato innovation continues to be necessary to feed a growing world population. ‘For you as suppliers of products and machinery, innovation remains essential to stay ahead’, Ruud Huirne tells his Audience. up, as figures from the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI), among others, are showing. What these average figures don’t show are the enormous differences in income between them. It’s sometimes a matter of a few annual incomes added up that one business scores higher or lower than the other. The reason is often the entrepreneur himself. Even in the years when prices were good, there were also potato growers who didn’t manage to earn a decent income. On the other hand, in a bad year like last year, you can again see that it was the good entrepreneurs that were still able to make profits. Seed potato sector fragmented and small-scale There are, without doubt, opportunities for the Dutch seed potato sector, in view of worldwide developments, but there are also concerns according to Huirne. What he says is that the total crop area is under pressure due, among other things, to disease pressure in the intensive growing areas. ‘I’m not as familiar with the technical side of growing as you are, but we do note this as a point of concern. At all events, healthy soil is important for a healthy sector. Is the seed potato sector future proof?’, Huirne wonders aloud. ‘If you take a bird’s-eye view of the sector, you have to acknowledge that it’s rather fragmented and small-scale. It could easily happen that the increasing global interest in potatoes will mean that big, foreign multinationals start taking over Dutch businesses. On the other hand, you also see that many potential growth markets like China are not so easily accessible to the seed potato sector. For example, because there are still problems with compliance with breeders’ rights. And what about the developments at a company like Solynta in Wageningen, which may soon be able to sell potato varieties in the form of seed all over the world. That has the advantage that transport costs are much lower compared to seed potatoes and there’ll be less chance of disease spreading. These are all developments to take into account if you want to avoid markets collapsing’, says the Rabo top man. The Netherlands still in the vanguard All in all, Huirne can say that he’s positive about the sector. ‘However, innovation is and remains necessary to stay ahead of the competition’, the banker emphasises. The Netherlands has knowledge and is still ahead in technical developments such as precision farming, but also in sustainable farm management. We’re already at the top as far as breeding is concerned. And we can stay there, unless we continue to aim for horizontal cooperation. Potato World 2016 • number 3 17 Pagina 16

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