On 5 and 6 June the European potato community gathered for the Europatat Congress 2023 in Gdansk, Poland. The first-time ever Polish edition of Europatat’s annual event focused on the impact of current geopolitics for international agri-food trade and on the effect of EU’s Green Deal’s goals and new consumption trends for the potato sector inside and outside Europe.
On Monday 5 June, Europatat members reviewed the different activities of the association during the meetings of its five Commissions (consumption potatoes, seed potatoes, sustainability, technical and regulatory issues and RUCIP). External speakers such as Cedric Porter, from the World Potato Markets, and Albert Schirring from Bayer presented the latest potato market data and the results of a study on glycoalkaloids, respectively. Other topics covered during the day were related to export markets, wireworms, quality requirements, packaging, green claims, among many others.
On Tuesday 6 June, the Europatat Congress’ public conference was preceded by the annual meeting of the association’s General Assembly. Europatat members had also the opportunity to hear from guest speaker Blair Richardson, CEO of Potatoes USA, how the potato sector is organised in the United States of America, and the work on nutrition research and promotion that is being done by the Alliance for Potato Research & Education (APRE) and Potatoes USA.
Source: potatogrower.com