Potato News from Europe

The Antwerp Court of Appeal has sentenced a farmer in the Belgian province of Antwerp to pay a large fine and damage compensation to Breeders Trust for not reporting his acreage farm saved seed for the varieties Asterix and Fontane which are protected under Plant Breeders’ Rights.

Recent flooding of the global seed vault in Svalbard caused a stir, since it was designed to last forever. Luckily all seeds (including several thousand potato seeds) are OK, but already adaptations to the vault may be needed to deal with climate change.

Processing and Packaging equipment specialist tna announces that it received additional orders worth over 7 million euros in 7 days during the Interpack trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany – making it tna’s most successful show to date.

Earlier this month, Aviko has added Golden Hash Browns to its product range in the United Kingdom, tapping into the all-day dining trend.

On his tour through the parliament election districts in Lower Saxony, Prime Minister Stephan Weil will also be visiting Emlichheim on May 20, 2017, where he will visit the main headquarters of the Emsland Group.

Interpack 2017 scored a record attendance of 2,865 exhibiting companies. Furthermore, 74% of the approximately the 170,500 visitors travelled to Düsseldorf from abroad, which is another record

Great Britain grower-held potato stock levels at the end of March 2017 were at 1Mt, around the same volume as the end-March 2016 and 300Kt less than the end-March 2015 according to an AHDB estimate.

The value of the certificate of share of HZPC Holding B.V., the world leader in potato breeding and seed potato trade, is determined on € 165.65 at the bi-annual stock trading day. This means again a maximum increase of the value of 10% and it brings the market value to € 129.8 million.

DEFRA ha aprobado la solicitud del Laboratorio Sainsbury, Norwich, para llevar a cabo ensayos de campo con cultivo de papa genéticamente modificada (GM) en un sitio de ensayo designado en el Norwich Research Park entre 2017 y 2021.

In the United Kingdom, farming minster George Eustice (DEFRA) has approved a four-year trial of genetically modified (GM) potatoes at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich.

Potato Machine Manufacturer AVR explains a number of options for the crop handling & storage equipment launched last season

Buntata is a collaborative effort between the University of St Andrews and the James Hutton Institute to enable open access to our information resources and put them at the fingertips of potato growers.

TOMRA Sorting Food has delivered the world’s highest capacity steam peeler to a leading potato processing company.

The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 168.0 points in April 2017, down 3.1 points (1.8 percent) from March, but still 15.2 points (10 percent) higher than in April 2016.

The Jazzy baby potato from C. Meijer does not need to be peeled. This variety, introduced seven years ago by the Dutch breeder, just needs to be washed. Jazzy baby potatoes can also be served after only ten minutes of cooking.

La conselleira de Medio Rural, Ángeles Vázquez, ha comunicado que en los primeros cuatro ayuntamientos en los que se ha empezado a retirar la patata por la plaga de la polilla guatemalteca se han recogido "cerca de 17.000 kilos de patata", y ha pedido la "solidaridad" de los afectados para "facilitar" la recogida.

Despite the fact that the bacteria responsible for zebra chip disease occur in the Mediterranean and cause damage in leek and onions, the risk for transfer to potatoes is low, because of the feeding preferences of the transmitting psyllids in this area.

tna has launched the tna ropac® 5, a ground-breaking, ultra-high-speed case packer for flexible bags that is capable of industry-leading speeds of up to 300 bags per minute.