P ot a t o w o r l d CONTENT: Journal for the Potato sector • number 3 • 2016 Danespo CEO Steen Bitsch: ‘Our principal aim is not growth, but stability and profit’ > page 4 11 PW-Actua 14 Potato innovation continues to be necessary to feed a growing world population 28 Louise Fresco: Developments around genetic modification will continue undeterred 31 Ensuring the price is right 34 Maybe it would be better to call the potato a vegetable 37 The World of PotatoResearch 38 PotatoWorld dish 38 PW Agenda Focus on ‘the variety as a brand’ at Fruit Logistica > page 21 Knowledge is very important I have noticed that the potato has often featured positively in the news lately. Various Internet and other platforms in the Netherlands and abroad, for example, have praised the high quality of the contents of the potato. It is said to lower blood pressure, for example, and Tim Steel writes in his book ‘The potato Hack’ that you lose a lot of weight with a potato-only diet. That’s a very different message from what diet gurus keep saying – that the potato is supposed to be fattening. In order to have sufficient healthy potatoes available for the expanding worldwide population, also in the future, reliable knowledge about the potato is very important. We’ll be focusing a lot of attention on this topic again in this issue of PotatoWorld. During the first lustrum of the Wageningen Potato Centre, Professor Ruud Huirne and Professor Martin van Ittersum looked in their crystal balls and gave a scientifically-underpinned view of the year 2050 and the role of the potato then. In order to supply the expected 9 billion people that will then populate the earth with 60 percent more food than at present, innovation and horizontal cooperation will be necessary to keep ahead of the competition, according to Huirne. But when scientific research finally leads to knowledge and results, these cannot always be immediately applied. Scientists in the Netherlands and abroad have achieved good results in the domain of cisgenesis, for example, where native genes are implanted in the potato whereby specific characteristics can be quickly added. This means that potatoes can now already be grown using a minimum of Phytophthora pesticide. Because of political discussion around the definition of genetic modification, however, it’s not yet possible for growers to cultivate these varieties. Professor Fresco, Chairman of the Executive Board of Wageningen University, is quite annoyed with the European politicians who look mainly at the process instead of at the final product. She noted that it’s the other way around in America. With the potato sector, it’s important to realise that this attitude by politicians may result in losing part of the market to this competitive force due to lower cultivation costs. Jaap Delleman Potato World 2016 • number 3 3 Pagina 2
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