The need for the physical realisation of the £40m National Potato Innovation Centre (NPIC) proposed for the James Hutton Institute is now stronger than ever, it has been claimed.

A growing appreciation within the industry of the bottleneck in the adoption of new discoveries and techniques caused by the gap between pure research and growers on the ground has given a new urgency to the project, the centre’s director Professor Ian Toth told last week’s Potatoes in Practice event.

The professor, who was recently appointed president of the European Association for Potato Research, said that it was not an easy time to gain funding for near-market research – but stated that a recent nationwide round of workshops which had attracted individuals, scientists, government bodies and commercial interests had highlighted the real need for practical applied research to bridge the gap.

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He said that although events such as Potatoes in Practice provided an excellent vehicle for the exchange of information between producers, scientists and policy makers, more still needed to be done to ensure science was translated into practice.

The loss of levy payers’ support for funding through AHDB Potatoes had, he admitted, contributed to the breakdown of the flow of research into practice – and he claimed that there was a continued need for a strong voice from the industry:

“And new producer groups like the Seed Potato Organisation and GB Potatoes will play an important role in making government channels more aware of need to provide funding to plug the gap between science and practical agronomy.”

Agreeing that there needed to be a closer focus on applied work, SAC senior potato specialist Dr Kyran Maloney said that initiatives such as the ‘six steps to effective virus management’ advice package drawn up by a collaboration within the Scottish seed sector was an example of what could be done, as was the all-industry effort on tackling the potato cyst nematode problem:

“Potato production in the UK and Ireland has a strong sustainability and productivity story, but the industry faces unparalleled uncertainty. Rising costs of production, shortage of labour, and growing technical challenges mean that the need for practical innovation has never been greater.”