BPC Study Tour of Czech Republic and Poland

19th to 23rd June 2005

BPC Study Tour of Czech Republic and Poland

19th to 23rd June 2005



The intrepid travellers David Higgins and Stephen Uttridge made the arduous pioneering

journey to Finningley Airport to start the journey to Prague and commence the tour with

seventeen other delegates from a cross section of our industry in the UK.



The tour was designed to give the delegates a flavour of potato production and marketing in the new member states of the European Community. This involved visiting potato producers, packers and processors.



Our first visit was at a company called Bramko Semice Limited, based 50 kms outside Prague. This is a fast growing potato and vegetable production operation which is adding value to its products by washing and packing. Later in the week we saw these products in a very large Tesco Super Store at a magnificent retail park just on the outskirts of Prague.



They were harvesting a range of early potato varieties such as Marabel and Jaerla. The

sample looked very bonnie at harvest and through washing. However they were hardly skin set, and in the Tesco store, were looking a little tired and browning.



This was one of the more advanced and go-ahead operations, and yields were declared at around 30 tonnes per hectare on earlies. The operation, however, was far from typical. The major differences were the level of investment in machinery, the use of good new seed and irrigation. Many of the potato crops we saw were generally in very poor condition�virus

affected, weed infested, unirrigated and full of Colorado Beetle. They were unlikely to yield more than 10-15 tonnes per hectare.



From there we travelled to Poland to visit the McCain factory near Warclow. This facility was completed in the early 1990s and is now using in excess of 120,000 tonnes of potatoes per annum, mainly supplied on contract by local growers, but with 25% still produced by McCain�s own growing operations.



This is a superb facility, with excellent production practices, using good seed, having good management and some irrigation. Varieties, including Innovator, Santana, Felsina, Fresco and Markies, yield approximately 30+ tonnes per hectare.



Again, we found that it was the same story as in the Czech Republic. This was the exception and most potato production being carried out produces very low yields.



In summary, it can be said that in both countries, potato production is, in the main, poor, under financed and grown for subsistence use by the local population. Where the market demands, for instance for McCain�s, Tesco and other Western European supermarkets, it is possible to grow crops of potatoes and vegetables equal to those grown in the rest of Europe.



Funding seems to be a major problem. However, labour is readily available at low cost. In our view, this will change as the affluence of places such as Prague and other major cities grows and develops in the post communist era. This is already beginning to happen, and growth rates are fast.



It will be some time before the two countries are able to fill this growing domestic requirement, and it will be some 10 years before they look to export to Western markets. But it will happen, and the whole geography of potato production will change.