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farmingscotland.com Issue sixty-nine • September 2010
ARABLE
by Andrew Arbuckle
Potatoes In Practice
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010 should provide better returns for Scottish potato growers according to Allan Stevenson, the chairman of the Potato Council. He was speaking at Potatoes in Practice, the main potato demonstration event in Scotland, which is held on the outskirts of Dundee, when he gave his upbeat view on the prospects for this year’s crop. First of all, a reduced acreage went into the ground this Spring in the UK and this combined with expected lower yields should bring potato growers higher returns for their crop. The news for Scottish growers is even better, with Stevenson reckoning the crops in this part of the world are looking good compared with those in the potato growing areas of England, where there has been a shortage of water during the growing season and where they have come to early maturity without realising full cropping potential. The other part of the financial equation for potato growers depends on consumption and while he admitted that there was a “long term structural decline” in the amount of potatoes being eaten, he claimed the efforts of the Potato Council in reversing this trend were being successful. Part of the problem for potatoes is that they are perceived by some consumers as being time consuming to prepare and in this era of fast food, this was seen as a negative. However, the Potato Council has been behind a campaign to persuade consumers, especially those in the younger end of the demographic scale that potatoes could provide a meal in ten minutes and Stevenson said this seemed to be making a difference.
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The UK is largely self sufficient in fresh potatoes but there is still a volume that comes in as processed for the lower end of the catering trade, he stated. Stevenson rejected a view that the UK processing sector were ‘behind the game’ in bringing forward new and innovative products. In his travels around the world, he said this was not the case. Next month, Stevenson, will return to China to continue the battle to open their market for seed potatoes. Although China is the largest producer of potatoes in the whole world with an annual production of 75million tonnes (compared with UK production at less than 6 million tonnes) it did not have a very developed market as yet with the vast majority of the tonnage both hand planted and hand lifted. Previous efforts to remove trade barriers to China have resulted in allowing minituber production but this specialist system has not been taken up. Stevenson, said that while he hoped to persuade the Chinese to take away the barrier preventing field scale seed being sent out from Scotland, he did not believe there would ever be any great tonnage traded. However, he argued the side benefits for other parts of the potato industry could be immense. This was especially so with a major transformation taking place in the retail sector in China, where one of the UK major retailers aims to build some 80 supermarkets. “Currently there is no structure in their potato industry to supply that type of demand but if we can help by exporting high quality seed there could be wider benefits.”
T
he ability of some of the most potentially damaging diseases to the country’s potato crop to survive for a long time in limbo should make growers seriously consider washing the wooden crates in which the crop is now stored. That was the opinion of Dr Gerry Saddler, the head of the bacteriology at the Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture agency, when speaking at the Potatoes in Practice day. SASA has been in the forefront of the battle against diseases such as Brown Rot and Ring Rot coming into Scotland. More recently there has been the arrival of the bacterial disease Dickeya. With these and other existing diseases, Dr Saddler said that growers should balance the cost and risk in all their actions. He suggested that wooden crates that had gone off farm and may have gone down south to England should be cleaned when they came back to any seed growing farm. Apart from the potential for bacterial disease being brought onto seed growing farms, there was a real risk of introducing potato cyst nematodes. Growers should also consider whether they use second hand sacks if there was any risk of these having been used to handle other potatoes. He listed the considerable costs to any business where disease was found with the destruction of the infected crop being only part of the penalty. “The risks are incalculable and they could devastate businesses.” The annual growing crop inspections carried out in July had not identified any problems in the seed crops, other than a slight rise in one of the well known virus problems. But Dr Saddler said that those farms where dickey had been found would be under extra surveillance. The
same was true of those farms downstream from the places of infection as the disease is water borne. Although the season is passed, he said that a ban on irrigation might be considered if there was any evidence of the bacterial disease having entered the watercourse. Since dickeya was found in Scotland, procedures have been tightened up and seed growers have again been urged to join the voluntary Safe Haven scheme which is designed to keep disease from entering the country. Dr Saddler said Government should not bear the complete responsibility for ensuring disease did not enter the potato crop in this country, growers also had responsibilities in this direction. More than two thirds of the seed area is now covered by the Safe Haven scheme which is based on purchasing seed from known safe sources. It does not stop the introduction of new varieties from the Continent but they have to go through a quarantine procedure that ensures there is no importation of disease. Earlier Dr Saddler had highlighted the drivers for more infection coming into the country. The increased globalisation of world trade and climate change both brought with them added risk of imported disease. The entry of countries such as Bulgaria and Turkey into the European Union could see the return of an old enemy, Wart Disease which almost a century ago devastated the UK potato crop before special legislation was brought in to help control it. SASA are also wary of exotic diseases such as Zebra Chip which is transmitted by insects and which is now endemic in New Zealand.