News on Research from Europe

FoodDrinkEurope, the trade body representing Europe’s food and drink industry, welcomes the political agreement reached between the EU and Canada on the key elements of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

In the United Kingdom, Members of Parliament (MPs) were treated to a day of potatoes, as Potato Council was sponsored to attend Parliament during Potato Week (7-13 October).

In the United Kingdom, a high profile advertising campaign has been launched to drive awareness and sales of named potato varieties.

More than 140 potato growers, advisors and agronomists met at Frederick Hiam Ltd, Tuddenham, Suffolk at the end of August, 2013, for Potato Council’s East of England Potato Day.

This week, Breeders Trust successfully reached an agreement with eight Italian agricultural cooperatives and producers that propagated potato varieties and marketed these as officially certified seed potatoes, without permission of the variety owner.

Yield trials of the Dutch Farmers Union VTA indicate a yield mid August 19 percent below the 5-year average.

Growers, agronomists and technical specialists turned out in high numbers at Potatoes in Practice earlier this month on the James Hutton Institute’s Balruddery Farm, Invergowrie.

Importers and growers looking to buy high health, high quality seed are warmly invited to visit Potato Council’s stand at Potato Europe (Emmeloord, The Netherlands, September 11-12, 2013).

In the aftermath of last year’s difficult growing and harvesting season, almost one in ten of Britain’s potato growers decided to call it a day, but, according to Rob Clayton of the Potato Council, the 2013 acreage of potatoes in the UK has not fallen.

Furious potato growers are going head to head with supermarkets and restaurants in a campaign to reclaim the "British New Potato".

Potato Council’s summer ‘Many Faces of Potatoes’ campaign has been hailed a major success, following positive industry and consumer feedback.

The North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) has issued an updated estimate of planted area for the 2013 crop (at the start of July).

The Guatemalan potato moth is wreaking havoc in potato crops in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Control measures exist, but are toxic or financially out of reach. Now there's a promising alternative: a biopesticide based on a virus that infects the moth.

The Potato Council’s first estimate of total potato plantings for the 2013 crop year in Great Britain is 121,200 hectares.

Representatives from across Europe?s food supply chain have today announced the launch of a joint effort to tackle the major societal problem of food wastage via the publication of their Joint Declaration entitled, “Every Crumb Counts”.

Children across the United Kingdom have been harvesting new potato crops as part of the Potato Council’s primary school project, Grow Your Own Potatoes.

In the United Kingdom, the Potato Council is seeking to raise awareness for the new season crop, with a TV advertising burst to hit screens in July.

Irish Research Institute Teagasc hopes to begin planting out more than 5,000 potato plants in the next two weeks, in the second phase of its study into the environmental impact of blight-resistant genetically modified (GM) potatoes.