REPORT IMPORT BAN ON NEW VARIETIES LIFTED The New Zealand market for seed potatoes is currently approximately 22,000 tons. From the information given by the trading companies, 62 different varieties of certified seed are being grown. In addition to local varieties such as Moonlight, Red Jacket and Rua, you also increasingly see foreign varieties being grown in the New Zealand soil. Besides the well-known Dutch varieties such as Agria and Innovator, we have also seen other non-local varieties. The Scottish variety Nadine is by far the biggest variety for table potatoes. Nadine is a really whitefleshed variety that looks very attractive. Washed and on the supermarket shelf, Nadine looks really enticing, but it is also rather tasteless, that is what the local potato connoisseurs say. If they could have their way, this will change and more varieties will reach the island in the years to come. This could not have happened before, because the border has been closed for the import of new varieties in the past seven years. During that time, New Zealand’s own potato breeding station did introduce to the market the locally-known Moonlight variety. McDonald Merchants is another company that is active with protected varieties in the New Zealand seed potato trade. The varieties that this company represents include those from HZPC, Caithness, Solana, Norika, C. Meijer BV, Cygnet and Den Hartigh. Since 2008, it has been possible again to send new varieties to New Zealand, says Tony Hendrikse The Scottish variety Nadine is by far the biggest variety for table potatoes. It is a really white-fleshed variety that looks really attractive New varieties are only developed in-vitro Since 2008, it has been possible again to send new varieties to New Zealand. Not as seed potatoes, as is customary to many countries in the world, but as in-vitro plants. Tony Hendrikse, a second generation Dutchman and, since 2005, managing director and joint owner of potato trading company Eurogrow, tells us that they buy these plants from the Scottish institute SASA (Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture), where they are subjected to special tests before they are accepted in New Zealand. This means that one lot of a particular variety already costs about 3,000 NZ dollars before it is allowed to enter the country. And this is only the start, because success in Europe does not necessarily mean success in New Zealand. Hendrikse tells us that 75% of the new varieties are rejected during the five to seven years that they are tested. Before a variety is ready for a successful introduction, about 50,000 NZ dollars have already been spent. Moreover, the protected varieties have to compete fiercely with the free New Zealand varieties, because an additional levy of approximately 50 to 65 dollars per ton is charged. The price for seed potatoes is 800 to 850 dollars a ton for user seed in the G4 to G6 categories. Hendrikse tells us that he and his joint owner John Stanley paid a total of 200,000 euros in royalties last year to the Dutch seed potato companies Agrico, Europlant, IPM, and Van Rijn-KWS, and the American Cornell University and Australian Agriculture Victoria. Besides Eurogrow, Alex Dutch grower lays foundation for seed potato growing All in-vitro plants that arrive in New Zealand via Eurogrow are developed by the originallyDutch grower Tinus Lepoutre. Lepoutre and his wife Mieke Kroef and six children have been farming in New Zealand since 1996. He used to be a crop farmer in Wijchen, near the city of Nijmegen. The Lepoutre family has deliberately chosen to emigrate to New Zealand. Mieke was born in New Zealand and always very much wanted to go back there. And Tinus also found it increasingly difficult during the nineties to earn a living with crop farming in the Netherlands. There were more opportunities in New Zealand, he thought. ‘New Zealand has a pleasant climate for people and for crop farming. Also, there are ample opportunities to start and develop a farm business. ’ Lepoutre preferred to grow his crops under good conditions and on flat land, which is why he chose the village of Rakaia, an hour’s drive from Christchurch. ‘The land is less expensive than in the mountains near Pukekohe’ , he explains. All in-vitro plants that arrive in New Zealand via Eurogrow are developed by the originallyDutch grower Tinus Lepoutre (l). Together with Eurogrow’s John Stanley, he inspects last year’s harvest 28 Potato World 2009 • number 4 Pagina 27
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