Potatoes… - Bayer CropScience

This is HZPC
HZPC Holland B.V. came into being in 1999 through the merging of two large seed
potato export companies in the Netherlands: Hettema and De ZPC, each with more
than 100 years of experience behind them. The HZPC headquarters are located in
Joure (Friesland, Netherlands).
The core activities of HZPC are breeding, growing and selling seed potatoes.
HZPC is one of the world’s largest commercial enterprises in seed potatoes.
Approximately 620 seed potato growers - with a total acreage of almost 12,000
hectares - are affiliated to HZPC Holland. In recent years, total production has
varied from 330,000 to 400,000 tonnes of seed potatoes. Eighty to 90 percent of
this volume is destined for export. HZPC thus accounts for more than 40 percent
of the total Dutch seed potato export volume.
HZPC exports seed potatoes to 80 different countries. The company has subsidiaries
in Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina,
Russia and Scandinavia.
To support its core activity (seed potatoes), HZPC also deals in ware potatoes.
In this way HZPC’s protected potatoes are promoted within the supermarkets.
Gerard Backx, General Director of HZPC
Holland B.V.: “As a leading seed potatoproducing
country, we shall have to keep
up in terms of knowledge, quality and
modernization.”
farmers are growing it themselves. As a
result, the concept of license payments has
got lost to some extent. In order to chart
the seed potato routes – and thus the
license obligations – HZPC recently
opened an office in Argentina. For a number
of other countries, a license fee is
demanded when the seed potatoes are
purchased: the customer is then free to
grow the variety once or twice.
Of all the seed potatoes that HZPC and Agrico sell, 75 to 85 percent is destined for export. About half are
transported to their destination by ship.
a breeder’s rights (license) to a variety
remain valid for 30 years. “We therefore
have to make the maximum profit from a
variety during that period,” is how HZPC
Director Backx summarizes an important
aim of the company. Varieties such as
Spunta and Desirée – which can be grown
freely because the license period has
expired – have thus gained two faces. “On
the one hand, they are an excellent way of
displaying our achievements of the past;
but on the other hand, they no longer bring
in any license payments, and they sometimes
inhibit the breakthrough of new
varieties,” is how Backx describes the
sometimes tricky situation.
Payment is not always a matter of course
In addition to the dilemma of the older varieties
that sometimes sit in the way, the
payment of the license fees is sometimes
an awkward point. Of the 80 countries to
which they export, there is ‘a handful’
that do not take licenses very seriously,
according to Backx. In one particular case,
it is unwillingness; but more often it is a
question of inadequate administration or
organization. As an example, Backx mentions
Argentina, where the French fries
variety Innovator has made a considerable
breakthrough in recent years. Initially, the
variety was only grown by the industry.
But now that the variety has proven itself,
Licenses vital in order to pay for
breeding work
According to Agrico Director Van Hoogen,
it is not only distant countries that cause
problems with license payments. Cases are
also sometimes brought against growers in
Belgium, France, Germany and the United
Kingdom who do not take licenses seriously.
An awkward point here is that although
these countries respect the license legislation,
a lot of negotiations are still ongoing
about the precise method of payment. “As
a result, Agrico misses out on many millions
of Euros per year. And we need that
money to offset the breeding costs.”
Diseases
In the area of diseases and infestations, the
prevention and/or control of the Erwinia
bacterium (cause of black leg and stalk
rot) will continue to be a major challenge.
Despite the numerous efforts that have
been made in research and cultivation in
recent years, the problem is still increasing.
Van Hoogen anticipates that the
Netherlands is not yet free of the bacterial
problem. “You can’t do anything to combat
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