TRADE AND MARKET I NG In 25 years, EUROPLANT has developed from a regional player to a multinational company country X, country Y can help. This makes the system unique. In the Netherlands, we’ve achieved a price of over 34 euros per 100 kilograms this year, which means we’re among the top regions of seed potato cultivation in this country’, Renatus explains. Continuing to grow internationally With a record seed potato turnover of 183,000 tons plus 96,000 tons of consumer trade, of which 57,000 tons is domestic trade and 39,000 tons is exports, Europlant achieved a record turnover of 108.5 million euros in crop year 2016. This turnover doesn’t include the turnover of the subsidiaries. Together, the subsidiaries are realising a turnover of over 160,000 tons this year. There’s also a subsidiary in the Netherlands. This company, Europlant Aardappel BV, sold 9,563 tons last year, which puts the Dutch company at number 5 out of a total of 13 subsidiaries in Europe, after France (14,221), Turkey (10,469), Poland (10,245) and the Czech Republic (14,206). Moreover, the Europlant group is also active in America, where BNA has set up a breeding company. In Idaho Falls, a sales organisation has been set up through the subsidiary Sun Rain. This year, 1,000 hectares of seed potatoes are already being cultivated. ‘We see a clear shift in this market towards yellowfleshed varieties that we have plenty of in our product range. In addition to variety research for the North American market, we notice that the climate in this area resembles that in Russia’, Eggers experiences. ‘In Russia, potatoes have trade remains important.’ A new area where Europlant is spreading its wings is Asia and Africa. ‘With our broad range of varieties and many resistances against nematodes and other diseases, pests and drought, we can compile a specific set of ‘However, as long as the European Commission doesn’t clarify the position of CRISPR/Cas-9, we can’t do anything with it.’ been the second in line, after bread, for a long time. This means that there’s a substantial per capita consumption by the 200 million population. That’s why we have our own breeding station here in the Republic of Tatarstan, 100 kilometres east of Moscow. We grow 350 hectares of seed potatoes here. We expect that exports of high-quality seed potatoes from Western Europe will continue to be necessary. On the other hand, it’s a widely-supported political idea that the country wants to be self-sufficient. You must be there right from the start to be able to take advantage of such new insights’, explains Eggers. ‘This development fits in with the global trend of wanting to be self-sufficient in your own food supply’, Renatus adds. ‘It means that local free varieties for each country’, explains Jan Willem Sepers, who has been responsible for developing these new areas for the past three years. Varieties for every area in the world Looking at the future, Renatus and Eggers perceive the development and marketing of new varieties as a huge challenge. ‘Worldwide, climate extremes with high temperatures and short, often heavy rainfall, but also dry and saline areas are increasing. This calls for a wide range of varieties so we can also feed the world population of 10 billion people in 2050. The potato is an interesting crop for this, so we must provide varieties that can be grown in every region of the world. That’s why specific resistances in our varieties are of paramount importance. We’re also focusing on service. In the future, transparency in the chain will increase further and digitisation will become more important. This means that we’re going to integrate data flows into our product flow’, explains the Europlant Director. ● Jaap Delleman BNA is currently examining the possibility of the further automation of inspection, because it is increasingly difficult to find suitable people to do this. Potato World 2017 • number 4 31 Pagina 30

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