Poor infrastructure a blow to Scottish seed potato exports

This lack of comparable facilities and network infrastructure to those enjoyed by the competition in Holland and other European countries has stymied efforts to make good the loss of EU markets, a major potato conference heard last week.

With a consignment of high quality Scottish seed exports held in limbo at a port in Africa as the conference took place, growers and traders claimed that while the seed had been delivered to the Scottish port on time, delays in shipping the potatoes to Egypt had resulted in the consignment arriving outside its allotted time-slot, putting the high-value deal in jeopardy.

Speaking at the conference, Patrick Hughes, who headed up the recently set up Scottish Agriculture Exports Hub – run jointly by NFU Scotland and SAOS – said that the sector needed to give itself a fighting chance by working towards rectifying the transport and port issues which had dogged the exporters in recent times.

He told the annual meeting of the SAC Association of Potato Producers that co-operation and collaboration, both within the industry and with other sectors, would set the way forward.

Mr Hughes said the whisky trade had suffered similar problems in recent times with issues linked to the lack of export facilities in Scotland. He said a concerted approach to the Scottish Government was needed to explain that if the administration intended to realise its ambitions to be recognised as a global leader in exports, these issues would need to be addressed.

Sandy McGowan, of Cygnet PEP, who chairs the British Potato Trade Association, agreed that despite strong demand for Scottish seed, the risks of exporting had increased dramatically over the past 13 months – with the lack of facilities being further exacerbated by the effects of Covid-19 across the supply chain.

“We have a situation where demand for Scottish seed potatoes is growing – but what isn’t growing is the ability to deliver in a timely fashion what the customer wants, and that failure can’t be laid at the door of growers in Scotland or the customer at the receiving end – so there’s clearly something failing in the supply chain,” he claimed.

Alistair Melrose, of merchants J and E Smillie, said that while export played an important part in his business, the risks had grown to such an extent that he considered it almost a ‘necessary evil’ – and added that any rewards for the time, energy and risks invested had become slim.

He added that his company had been caught up in the difficulties with the consignment to Egypt through no fault of its own and that a lot of money could be lost – adding that, as a business, careful consideration would have to be given to what they would do regarding the export sector in the coming weeks.

With the sector facing the very real possibility of further shrinkage due to agronomic limitations – especially the rapid expansion of eelworm into seed growing areas – and producers becoming unwilling to take the risks involved with successfully exporting seed, the conference also heard a cautionary tale from Northern Ireland, which had previously also been a substantial exporter of seed.

Colm McDonnell, of the IPM Potato Group, said that as margins had been squeezed in the seed sector, producers in Ireland had converted to growing ware, or producing cereals and livestock – a cycle which had led to a downward spiral and a loss of critical mass which had seen the Irish seed sector collapse, leaving the country highly reliant on imported seed.

He added that as this had meant that Irish producers had been heavily dependant on importing Scottish seed. And the fact that such imports into the province were effectively banned under the Northern Irish Protocol meant the region was amongst the most severely affected by the ban on exports to Europe of seed from Scotland.

'Net zero' must be a main aim

Potato growers also heard that being seen to address climate change would become increasingly important for the industry – with farmers facing two main drivers towards Net Zero, Government targets which guided future support measures and the demands of processors and retailers further down the supply chain.

Read more: British Potato 2021: Life goes on for growers post-AHDB Potatoes

SAC senior rural business consultant, Julian Bell, told the conference that there was an understanding at both Westminster and Holyrood that as it was part of a biological system, farming had natural constraints on the degree to which it could curb the emissions of greenhouse gases:

“While the UK as whole has a target of reaching net zero by 2050 – with Scotland aiming to do this by 2045 – agriculture has been set the target of a 46% reduction as it relies on biological processes and the total elimination of emissions from the use of fertilisers and manures and the keeping of livestock can’t be achieved.”

However, he said that by using other areas for carbon capture, the overall picture could be addressed. But Mr Bell warned that both the processors and retailers in the supply chain were likely to set their own targets for reducing carbon footprints of potatoes and other crops.

These were not only likely to demand that emissions were reduced earlier, but also that they did achieve net zero as ambitious targets an claims were likely to be used as part of the retialers’ marketing and promotional campaigns, he added.

While he admitted that putting some land over to carbon sequestration and substantially increasing investment in new equipment and inputs such as nitrogen inhibitors, overall net zero could be reached, he questioned if this could be done effectively or economically without passing the huge increases in production costs which these would necessarily entail further down the supply chain.

“We need to look at the net cost benefit – for people will still need to be fed and there’s no point in simply exporting our emissions to other countries where there are lower standards and where food could soon be pushed into short supply,” said Mr Bell.

Commenting on the differences between the confusingly large number of carbon calculators which were available to assess the carbons footprints of various farming enterprises – he helped introduce the SAC’s own Agrecalc version – Mr Bell said that producers should pick one which suited their own business and which gave consistent results,

“While the overall figures might be important, the crucial thing is for farmers to use the tool to plan year on year improvements in their score, rather than focusing purely on the overall figure,” he pointed out.