It is a fact that ware potato growers and buyers are critical of seed potato quality. This may be a reason for the growing popularity of ATR seed potatoes. However, there are also additional risks associated with cultivation, although trading houses are not yet concerned. Watchdog Breeders Trust thinks otherwise.
Jan van Hoogen from Agrico acknowledges that there are years in which seed potato quality partly affects ATR cultivation boosts. 'In some years a piece, but growing seed potatoes (also ATR) is very different from growing for consumption. After a difficult year you often see some opportunists who then disappear again after a year. We have a permanent group of growers who purchase E's from us every year.'
Quality differences
HZPC director Gerard Backx cannot assess whether ATR offers better quality. 'The grower has to judge that himself. There are growers who decide to stop after a few years of ATR production. Others continue.'
Backx rightly believes that few requirements are imposed on ATR seed potatoes. 'It remains on the own farm, so the grower can decide for himself what requirements he sets for the seed potatoes he produces. No one else has to do that. He can also decide to have all kinds of tests carried out.'
Van Hoogen also believes that the current quality requirements are sufficient. 'It is not for nothing that it is for personal use. They must meet certain standards and also be tested to be free of ring and brown rot.' However, ATR seed potatoes entail additional risks.
Additional risks
Geert Staring, director of watchdog Breeders Trust, notes that the Netherlands is the only country where field inspection of ATR seed potatoes is mandatory. 'A batch inspection is not required, but neither is an examination for brown rot and ring rot. This is mandatory in the regular paw approval. Needless to say, there are additional risks involved. Primarily by the grower himself, but we have seen in previous cases that the environment is also exposed to additional risks. Consider the transfer of infections via machines and boxes. All in all, a questionable development in a country where we value quality so highly.'
However, Staring believes that the Netherlands is leading the way in guaranteeing quality in ATR cultivation. 'I don't know of any other country in the world where there is a mandatory field inspection for the retention of the harvest from consumption, which is intended for planting in the following year. In the Netherlands, seed potatoes may only be propagated once for consumption cultivation on your own farm. In Belgium, through the Federal Agency for Food Safety (FASFC), there is also reasonably good insight into this and it is also a major concern there that our own offspring does not result in a phytosanitary catastrophe.'
Southern and Eastern Europe problem cases
In many Southern and Eastern European countries it is a different story. There, reproduction takes place again and again through consumption. As a result, Staring encounters plots with more than 80 percent virus-affected plants and enormous losses due to bacterial diseases. 'Fortunately, you don't find such excesses in the Netherlands and Belgium. This does not alter the fact that the cultivation of the so-called Farm Saved Seed (FSS, which is called ATR in the Netherlands and Hoevepootgoed in Belgium) involves additional phytosanitary risks and the question is whether you are ultimately better off. Think of the big five for successful potato cultivation: crop protection, fertilization, good starting material, better varieties and (if necessary) irrigation.'