A meeting of Scottish seed potato growers at Forfar has agreed to the creation of a new co-operative organisation to represent the sector following the demise of the AHDB.
The group will be organised in collaboration with Scottishpotatoes.org (itself a partnership between SRUC, JHI and SASA), which will support the organisation during its formation, with additional input from NFU Scotland, Scottish Agronomy and support from SAOS. Based on a levy payment of £40/ha on seed potato crops, it is hoped that the body will raise around £250,000 a year, although it has been suggested that additional income could come from associated members and trade organisations.
Lead organiser and NFUS potato chair Mike Wilson, of Clochcan farm, told Scottish Farmer, “We are one of, if not, the best at producing seed potatoes in the world. We need to try and focus on keeping that standard and this new co-op will help us achieve it. Key to the new body is that it will be 100 per cent grower led. Only growers will be able to decide how the money is spent.
“We need to do work with virus on seed potatoes. AHDB had yellow aphid traps and we will look into continuing that work. Blight research is also needed and further down the line we could even look at genetic modification.”
It is hoped that the new body, which will initially have a steering group of ten growers, will be in place in time for this season’s harvest.