News on Climate Change from Belgium

Brussels marked the 2nd International Day of Potato with a conference and exhibition, highlighting the crop's role in food security, sustainability, and innovation. Stakeholders called for supportive EU policies to boost the potato value chain.

Very late and difficult planting conditions and emergence problems on a large scale are cause of concern in some of the main production regions in North-western Europe.

La temporada de cultivo de 2023 trajo desafíos sin precedentes para los productores de semilla de papa en Europa. Condiciones climáticas desfavorables y una reducción en la superficie sembrada han provocado retrasos en la siembra, disminución de los rendimientos y una importante escasez de semilla.

Scientists confirmed this week that summer 2023 was the hottest season the world has ever seen by a large margin. Europe is warming almost twice as fast as the global average, at about 2.2C above pre-industrial times.

During its last meeting prior to Potato Europe 2022, the North-western European Potato Growers (NEPG) estimates that global potato production in the NEPG zone (EU-04) will be down by 7 to 11 %.

How do different potatoes respond to heat, drought, and waterlogging stresses? EU-backed scientists are investigating the changes that make potatoes resilient or susceptible.

Europatat is part of an international consortium involved in the research project ADAPT (“Accelerated Development of multiple-stress tolerAnt PoTato”), which aims at developing new strategies to make potatoes fit for the challenging growth conditions of the future.

Declaración de Copa-Cogeca, Europatat, Euroseeds y Starch Europe sobre las nuevas técnicas genómicas en el mejoramiento de la patata.

Nicolai Prytz, sustainability and strategy director at TOMRA, has looked at how businesses, consumers and policymakers can help make the future of food sustainable.

ENGIE Refrigeration has developed a storage system based entirely on mechanical refrigeration, which allows maintaining the same storage conditions throughout the year.

The total potato harvest in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France in 2018 will be at least 20 percent lower than last year, according to the latest estimates of the North-western European Potato Growers (NEPG).

In this interview, Marc Van Herreweghe, the new Chairman of Belgapom and CEO of Mydibel, discusses the challenges this Belgian Potato Association faces going forward, as well as sustainability issues and problems related to recent weather conditions.

Brent Bucks of knife manufacturer FAM explains how potato chips processors can increase revenues despite the low quality crop

The warm and dry weather of recent months has caused a commotion in the potato sector in Northern Europe. This is why representatives of both the Dutch and Belgian potato sectors came together to discuss the situation and to voice their concerns.

The North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) conclude that the potato production this year in North-Western Europe will be much lower than average and that quality issues will be a main challenge.

The extreme heat and drought is a disaster for the upcoming potato harvest. And for processors too: in Belgium, potato chips manufacturer Roger&Roger (Croky) temporarily halts production of some its flavours to manage the lack of potato supply.

Total potato production in North-western Europe will be mostly determined by yield, as extreme drought plagues the crop, growing on a one percent larger acreage