CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Organic sector struggles with cultivation and marketing You can try and find all kinds of different descriptions: ‘Organic sector struggles with cultivation and marketing’ or ‘Cultivation and marketing of organic potatoes reaches impasse’. The reality is that the organic potato growers are not happy about current events. This dissatisfaction was discussed at great length during the ‘From Problem to Solution’ debate at the BioImpuls knowledge exchange day which was held in Oudemolen recently. ‘O ur potatoes are not effectively marketed. When I visit the supermarket, I don’t see the quality potatoes as we had delivered them. They don’t look attractive; it is all small sizes whilst we definitely harvested bigger ones. Why don’t I see them on the shelves? I wonder who in fact dominates the market, the processing industry, the retail sector?’ Farmer Kees van Beek has no hesitation in throwing the cat among the pigeons. Organically-grown potatoes are not marketed as they should be. It is not only Van Beek himself who has reached this conclusion, but it is also the opinion of the entire study group within the BioImpuls project, which has studied the subject. ‘It could be and should be better, because other organically-grown crops are marketed successfully’, is the conclusion of the study group. Examples are organic greenhouse products and field vegetables such as cabbages and carrots. For these reasons, several growers, breeders and buyers of organic potatoes were convened in Oudemolen to discuss the issues and to exchange views and offer solutions. What’s going wrong? What’s going wrong? That’s the main question for the organic growers present. Even before the actual afternoon discussion programme can start, various problems are already addressed during and after the presentations of the guest speakers. One of the presentations is given by crop adviser Ariaan Straver of DLV Plant. He discusses a few results of field demonstrations commissioned by BioImpuls. This includes a comparison of popular varieties. Observations showed that the current range of varietDissatisfaction about the cultivation and marketing of organic potatoes was discussed at great length during the ‘From Problem to Solution’ debate at the BioImpuls knowledge exchange day which was held in Oudemolen recently. ‘Our potatoes are not effectively marketed. When I visit the supermarket, I don’t see the quality potatoes as we had delivered them’, is what crop grower Kees van Beek points out. Potato World 2011 • number 4 29 Pagina 28
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