IN SOME REGIONS of the world potato consumption has stagnated in recent years. There are several thorny reasons for that, says Peter VanderZaag, president of Sunrise Potato Storage in Alliston, Ont., and a professor at Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China. “In the media, potatoes get a bad rap in many ways,” he asserts. “There is lots of information out there about how they are fattening, they…
MARCEL BRUINS, editor of European Seed, sat down with the leaders of five major potato breeding companies in Europe to learn more about the challenges of breeding new potato varieties. Piet Smeenge, director of Kweekbedrijf Smeenge-Research; Vanessa Prigge, Crop Improvement project manager at Solana; Gerard Backx, CEO of HZPC; Jan-Paul Bandsma, product manager at de Nijs Potatoes; and Guus Heselmans, R&D manager of C. Meijer B.V., provided insight on this favoured crop. …
Since Spain joined the EU, its potato acreage has dropped from 200,000 hectares down to 65,000 hectares, although it seems that the decline may be coming to an end due to several factors. Firstly, consumers increasingly demand products with better culinary qualities. The potatoes stored at low temperatures, although aesthetically attractive, have disappointed the consumers in terms of taste, motivating them to switch to other products, such as pasta. The new potato…
Potato sector officials say they’re working together to make sure key seed potato buyers in countries like Egypt, Morocco and Israel, get the right post-Brexit messages concerning product standards and quality. While customers in these countries choose British seed potatoes for various reasons, their number one buying criteria is the quality of UK produce, according to Sandy McGowan from Fife-based Cygnet PB. McGowan: “We’re an island nation, producing most of our seed…
Tasmania is the French fries capital of Australia. Six out of every ten of the tasty, golden-brown chips are grown and processed in this state. Water Minister Guy Barnett and Harvest Moon’s Mark Kable, recently finished a tour of Simplot’s French fry processing facility in Ulverstone. This more or less coincided with the federal government’s announcement on Thursday that the state had been listed as a national priority project for water and…
The government of the Netherlands and Dutch businesses have inked an agreement to undertake a “potato impact cluster” project in Bangladesh. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and a consortium of Dutch businesses joined hands to share their experience and best practices with potato farmers in Bangladesh to improve supply chain in potato sector of Bangladesh. An amount of Euro 900,000 has been allocated for this three-year project, said the Bangladesh Embassy in…
The humble potato may just be an important food for the future of space exploration. A recent experiment has taken place in the Peruvian capital of Lima. It saw a potato plant growing in conditions similar to what you might find on the surface of Mars. Experiments were conducted using Peru’s desert soil. Conditions were set up to mimic the harsh climate on Mars. These included an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide….
After 20 years of biotechnological research, the first GMO potato that is resistant to the PVY virus is said to go on sale to the public next year in Argentina. The potato’s productive and economic benefits are estimated at 45 million dollars per year in the Argentine market alone. This transgenic potato is the result of an achievement by Technoplant, a subsidiary of the Sidus group of companies. On August 8 of…
State farmers and the cooperative-farmers sector have planted more than 600 hectares of potatoes in the province of Ciego de Avila and will continue to plant this tuber in the coming days to complete the goal of planting 755 hectares for the current winter season. The work is being carried out by workers from the companies La Cuba, Arnaldo Ramirez, El Mambi, and Cubasoy, belonging to the municipalities of Baragua, Primero de…
When you think of China, do you think of potatoes? Maybe not, but in the Loess Plateau region of northwestern China, potato is the main food crop. Even though it is such an important crop there, potato yields are lower than they could be. The area has a dry climate with uneven precipitation. Droughts are common, especially in the spring when crops are just starting to emerge. If soil moisture was more…