News potato demo day

'Politics puts potato sector on sale'

22 August 2018 - Niels van der Boom - 12 comments

Powerful words by MEP Annie Schreijer-Pierik during the opening speech of the Potato Demo Day in Westmaas. After the lack of compensation for damage caused by the drought and the failure to allow new breeding techniques, she believes that the Dutch potato sector is not sufficiently supported by politics.

"The European Union (EU) embraces the agrarian family business and the development of circular agriculture. This feeling should be reflected in the House of Representatives," says Schreijer-Pierik. The new Common Agricultural Policy (GLB), which will be decided in the next period within the European Commission (EC), provides more freedom and fewer rules. However, it is up to the Member States to embrace it. "I sometimes hear from other MPs that the Dutch have gone mad," she says.

Unfair distribution
A good example is the failure to use the European disaster fund for extreme weather events, such as the dryness† “The funds for this, in the second pillar of the CAP, are given by the Netherlands to nature organizations. That is why these NGOs are shouting in the media how badly nature is suffering from the drought. crazy for words. Prime Minister Mark Rutte was in Friesland this week and spoke highly of the farmers there. It is time for him to speak like this about all farmers in the Netherlands."

The Dutch have gone mad

Schreijer-Pierik calls the rejection of new breeding techniques, such as Crispr-Cas, a bad development. "This is crucial in the potato sector. Research institutes receive billions, but they are withheld from one of the most important breeding techniques. With this company, the EU is driving companies to America or Russia. That is unacceptable. The latter has not been said about this," said Schreijer-Pierik.

Own protein
She sees the development of the new protein strategy by the EU (with more local cultivation and less soy imports) as a positive point for the potato sector. The climate is changing and the potato is a very climate-resistant crop. "If we don't support (family) businesses and new breeding techniques, the Netherlands will put its potato sector up for sale."

Schreijer-Pierik is supported by former WUR researcher Anton Haverkort, who has been involved for years in the development of resistant potato varieties. "After wheat and rice, the potato is the third food crop in the world. The only drawback is that the product is susceptible to diseases, we can do something about this with breeding," Haverkort said. 

Grow potato cultivation
NAO chairman Dick Hylkema also expresses his ambition about the potato sector: "Rabobank recently calculated that an additional 1,9 million tons of potatoes must be grown annually to feed a growing world population. They do not see that growth taking place in the Netherlands. I say, let's try to bring as much as possible to our country and sell knowledge and technology."

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Niels van der Boom

Niels van der Boom is a senior market specialist for arable crops at DCA Market Intelligence. He mainly makes analyses and market updates about the potato market. In columns he shares his sharp view on the arable sector and technology.
Comments
12 comments
Ch. Lips 22 August 2018
This is a response to this article:
[url=http://www.boerenbusiness.nl/aardappelen/artikel/10879705/politics-zet-potatosector-in-uitverkoop][/url]
That is what you get with a minister of the CU and a civil service that is close to the Green Lie. Actions had already taken place in France. We're way too good here.
jpk 22 August 2018
It is better to say girl pierick that nature and the environment are suffocating the entire agriculture it is high time that the sectors stand up for their own interests by means of a very strong protest. There is nothing more to lose except your company 90% of the sector earns far too little
The potato contracts that were drawn up before the drought simply do not meet. under pressure everything becomes liquid who protests with it
Manon 22 August 2018
This has already become more than clear with the decision of Wetterskip Friesland to ban irrigating crops but pass it on to football fields and golf courses. supermarket right???? Agriculture is the worst dog in the Netherlands and is blamed for the loss of nature, but the luxurious person does not see the beam in his own eye and certainly not the civil servants because they have a huge salary and a lot of free time so there must be enough leisure facilities. And the media bravely participates in this and in this way influences the mindset of the citizen who does not delve further into this and accepts this blindly. The mobile phone is much more important than a potato. The youth do not know what hunger is, there is an abundance in the store.
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willem 22 August 2018
Don't be so squeaky all, you elected this government after all. repentance comes to sin.
bookscook 22 August 2018
willem wrote:
Don't be so squeaky all, you elected this government after all. repentance comes to sin.

Well, well as if those few percent of farmer voters can make all the difference!
When you say you, dear Willem, you are probably not a farmer and you do not understand what is actually going on in this frog country!
free grower 23 August 2018
In our country there is no one who cares about agriculture.
Germany, England and France, there is still some feeling with the sector.

And yes, our house banker sees growth opportunities again, but not here.

It would be smarter for Rabobank to withdraw most of the financing from companies that are under water.
If the sector is immediately freed from its overproduction and there is a healthy contraction in acreage, the companies that have just stayed can start earning something.
Folks, what an enormous mechanization can someone tell you how you can profitably count on such a machine on those stamps that we farm here in the Netherlands.
southern neighbor 23 August 2018
free grower wrote:
In our country there is no one who cares about agriculture.
Germany, England and France, there is still some feeling with the sector.

And yes, our house banker sees growth opportunities again, but not here.

It would be smarter for Rabobank to withdraw most of the financing from companies that are under water.
If the sector is immediately freed from its overproduction and there is a healthy contraction in acreage, the companies that have just stayed can start earning something.
Folks, what an enormous mechanization can someone tell you how you can profitably count on such a machine on those stamps that we farm here in the Netherlands.



Then you are not better off here in our Flanders country.
If they could shoot our hardworking farmers and horticulturists to Mars with a Musk rocket, they did it immediately. Our government is mainly out on milking and starving to give the land to the greens almost for free and let it disintegrate. Our little kids will blame our generation for not making a fist at those lotto football races and sex politicians.
hans 23 August 2018
Yeah, blinders on more, more, more. The world is hungry. Learned nothing from the abolition of the milk quota? Growing demand in the world? And after a good year, yes, intervention! Because the farmers went bankrupt! And the couch with them. HUNGER is suffered by the poorest 15% of people on our planet. Who could live well on what we waste. But there is no food, too poor. Food is grown there, through large-scale projects by the rich, at minimum costs and regulations, but then shipped to the rich west, to set the price there.

But no, more for less, exactly as the rabo and pierik advise you, to keep their profitable business running.
hans 23 August 2018
Oh yes, now the CDA also wants to intervene in God's creation via crispr cas. How far do you have to go, and where can you still go?
January 25 August 2018
Mrs. Pierik is from the EU, but on the demo day, she mainly criticized the 2nd chamber.
The biggest change that is pre-eminently an EU matter is Brexit. Brussels may hope that this will be reversed/watered down. if so, then read no further.
If a hard Brexit takes place, this will very soon be a major change for Dutch agriculture and fisheries (the UK is the Netherlands' largest trading partner after Germany). Mrs. Pierik (wisely) kept silent about this on the demo day.
Brexit will immediately be felt deep in the pouch in the short term.
The EU is muzzling the Netherlands in order to make bilateral negotiations with the UK impossible. I say leave them alone, we will meet with London ourselves for our own sake.
They say, may not? fool them, that self-proclaimed Brussels bureaucrats clique. We no longer want to be bothered by that; chasing us at costs and placating consumers with low prices. And now also losing an important market.
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info 25 August 2018
We are 17000 farmers and keep 17 million people plus the people who live across the border to eat, now European money is coming for the costs incurred by drought, for those 17 million, and it will be in Ned. given to nature organizations , the world is turned upside down I feel seriously robbed by those organizations because they have been complaining to Schouten for a long time that nature needs it so much while no tree or plant has been sprayed by them . What a dirty mess.
joker 27 August 2018
Someone from EU politics who promises rescue: easy and cheap, and no guarantee.....

Cheap to say something like this here on a Potato Demo Day, while the EU also spends its money in places where poor returns would normally mean that it would be immediately out of business.

The only reason for survival is the money from Brussels......
January 28 August 2018
@jokertje "The only reason for survival is the money from Brussels......" The British call this penny wise and pound foolish.
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