CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Crisis or not, without breeding there are no solutions Jan van Hoogen, Agrico: ‘ Constance is a really traditional variety with a wonderful presentation’ ‘There is no crisis. For one thing, the potato is a commodity. We’re operating in a market of supply and demand. There happen to be a lot of potatoes this year, but you shouldn’t call that a crisis. When disaster strikes next year, the situation can easily be reversed. That’s how it works in our sector’, answers Jan van Hoogen, Managing Director of Agrico. And within that sector, the market situations vary greatly from one year to the other. ‘In the seed potato sector, we’ve paid excellent prices for the eighth year running. The consumption sector has also been doing very well in the past five, six years. A problem in the sector is that the costs have gone up a great deal. For example, growers are bidding against each other to be able to lease land. That’s a much greater problem than the fact that, for once, the potato prices are low this year. And new varieties are not the immediate answer to a year of low prices. Moreover, the level of the current industrial varieties is already very high. The Fontane, for example, that’s a variety that can’t be replaced so easily, not even by us’, laughs Van Hoogen. The segment in which Van Hoogen expects to make the extra step for the sector is fresh table potatoes and bakers. ‘We’ve got a new variety, the Constance, of which we have really high expectations. This is a true traditional variety that combines high yields with good taste and is best characterised as a combi baker. What catches the eye is the wonderful presentation. The skin is really smooth, white and the tuber is wonderfully shaped, as you can see. We expect to be able to plant 15 hectares of seed of this variety next year.’ André Postma, Kooi: ‘Obama is now also on the Huchette list’ ‘You know, we became big with the Frieslander. This variety still has a permanent value for us. Also for the growers’, describes André Postma from Kooij Selection company in Leeuwarden. ‘Ninety percent of the growers cultivating the variety form a fixed group. If you only grow Frieslanders, you aren’t hit by a crisis this year. Sales are usually organised earlier on, which makes it a closed market. If I extend the line to another variety, our new Obama, I can only say that there’s no recession for this variety either. If anything, it’s in great demand, especially in France. It’s doing very well there as a table potato in the fresh market, as a competitor for the Agata. We now grow both seed and consumption crops in that country. The buyers and end users are particularly happy about its taste. Honestly speaking, I’ve never had so many positive reactions after a first variety introduction as those of the Obama in France. They want much more next year. We then hope to plant a total of 60 hectares of seed of the variety and you can’t call that a crisis situation. Meanwhile, France also has a line of this attractive variety to another Frisian trading company: HZPC in Joure. This line runs through Huchette Cap Cris-Nez in La Chapelle ‘, says Postma. The Kooi variety has a proud place there among other successful varieties such as Mozart and Oriana, according to the Huchette website. Postma: ‘That’s because the variety stands out enormously in the field. The French consumption growers often order a big bag of seed there just to Michel de Nijs, De Nijs: Red Valentine is the red-sk ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll limit my reaction to our own sector, in which case I have to point out that there’s not been a crisis there and that the Spunta has rescued us from disaster. This season, too, the demand for this successful export variety is high and there are more opportunities for growth every year. As a small exporter I’ve profited a great deal from the 24 Potato World 2015 • number 2 Pagina 23
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