Upbeat prognosis for potato growers from council chief

A REDUCED acreage in the UK combined with expected lower yields should bring potato growers higher returns this year, an industry leader has said.

Allan Stevenson, chairman of the Potato Council, also said Scottish crops had fared better recently compared with England, where a shortage of water had caused early maturity, limiting full cropping potential.

Stevenson gave his upbeat view of the coming year at Potatoes in Practice, the main potato demonstration event in Scotland, held near Dundee.

The other part of the financial equation for potato growers depends on consumption, he said. He admitted there was a "long-term structural decline" in the amount of potatoes being eaten, but claimed the Potato Council was having some success in reversing this trend.

Part of the problem was that some consumers saw potatoes as time-consuming to prepare, he said. The Potato Council is working to persuade consumers, especially young people, that potatoes could provide a meal in ten minutes and Stevenson said this seemed to be making a difference.

The UK is largely self sufficient in fresh potatoes, but some are still imported processed for the lower end of the catering trade, he stated. He rejected a view that the UK processing sector was "behind the game" in bringing forward new 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 its market for seed potatoes. Although China is the world's largest producer of potatoes, with an annual production of 75 million tonnes (compared with the UK's at less than 6 million tonnes), the vast majority of the tonnage is both hand planted and hand lifted. He hoped to persuade the Chinese to lift trade barriers to Scottish field scale seed, adding that the side benefits could be immense.