Potato World vision Storage system as export product For many years now, the Netherlands has no longer been the biggest sales market for suppliers of storage systems. Many Chinese regard Europe as a museum, nicely fitted out, well organised and finished. Fortunately, this is not true. The Dutch growers have built up a great deal of experience and knowledge. Harvesting is usually carried out under difficult conditions. Creativity is a necessity, because they operate in a competitive market. As a result, the storage systems have become increasingly sophisticated and are also much easier to operate. The storage results for Dutch growers are high and sometimes even extremely good. At the start of this century, there was the competition between the continental and the West-European storage systems. The continental system (suitable for the dry and cold climates of the USA and Canada) works with slow and continuous ventilation, whereby humidification ensures minimal drying out. The West-European system works with double the amount of air in which humidification plays a minor role. The ventilation system is determined on the basis of climate and harvesting conditions. An important factor is the payout, which is based on the quality and quantity of the potatoes upon delivery. The more drying out the more bruises. But the storage system alone is not the determining factor. In good years, proficient storage keepers – and we have those in the Netherlands – can limit weight loss after nine months to approximately 4 percent. That’s a result that gets everybody’s attention when you’re abroad. But is 4 percent the minimum? This year, one of our storage keepers achieved almost 2 percent. He owes his success to the persistent monitoring of weight loss and the optimising of settings. Will we soon be able to lower the level to 2 percent in growing markets abroad as well and to emphasise that this is mainly due to the skills of the storage keeper? Would he then be offered more training by his boss and remain with the company for many more years in order to continue improving quality? A new large-scale study into storage losses and energy usage will be started again in the Netherlands. This is the way to remain in the vanguard and, besides Tulips, Clogs and Cheese, the Netherlands will also have Potato Storage as an export product. Maarten Mooij Director of Mooij Agro BV m.mooij@hotraco.com PW-ACTUA WIFO takes over planting machinery division of Cramer and Koning and joins APH Group WIFO Anema from Ferwert, Holland agreed to take over the planting machinery divisions of both Cramer GmbH from Leer, Germany as well as the potato and onion planting division of the company Machinefabriek NP Koning BV (Koningsplanter) from Alkmaar, Holland. This causes WIFO to become a full liner in potato and onion planting equipment. WIFO is a well known player in the potato business. With its extended range of buckets and box rotators, WIFO is market leader in Western Europe. “These acquisitions give us a great extension of our product range of potato machines”, according to the managing director of WIFO, Mr. Wytze Anema. With both acquisitions, WIFO will also join the APH Group. WIFO fits in perfectly in the APH Group and is complementary to the other APH Group members: Baselier, Bijlsma Hercules, Dewulf, Omnivent, and Manter. The new range of potato planters as well as the Wifo/Baselier rotary cultivator/planting combination will be mainly marketed by the worldwide network of APH Group. “With these acquisitions we are ready for future developments”, explains Mr. Wytse Oosterbaan, general director of APH Group. Mr. André Schilder, director and owner of Machinefabriek NP Koning BV, will be active further developing the range of potato and onionplanters for WIFO. Cramer GmbH will focus completely on their range of garden and park machinery. “Driving on 2 tracks was effecting our efficiency and innovation power on our range of garden machines” said General Director Mr. Achim Peters from Cramer. On a number of international potato exhibitions, like Potato Europe in France, the Interpom in Belgium and the Agrotechniek in Holland, the new planting machines as well as the new Baselier/ WIFO rotary cultivator/planting combination will be presented. ● Potato World 2012 • number 3 9 Pagina 8
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